LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. I 

RESENTED ^Y //\^ 



PRI 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



LESSONS FROM THE LIFE 



OF 



Benjamin Franklin 



1706 — 1790. 



BUFFALO : 

PKTER PAUL i 1;R0., PRINTERS AND BINDERS. 

189I. 



£730? 



PREFACE 



While thinking last summer how I might use- 
fully employ some leisure hours, it occurred to me 
to prepare the following compilation for the benefit 
of the young people of Buffalo, having in view 
especially those who have lately graduated, or who 
are about to graduate from our public and other 
schools. It may also be interesting and not un- 
profitable reading to older persons who are not 
familiar with the details of Benjamin Franklin's 
business career. 

It is for the most part an abridgment, consisting 
of those portions of Franklin's autobiography 
which may be useful for instruction and example in 
the conduct of business and life, and excluding 
many genealogical and other details and various 
episodes which are comparatively uninteresting, are 
not within the purpose of the volume, and would 
enhance its cost. These considerations afford, I 
think, a sufficient answer to the objections usually 
and sometimes properly made to abridgments. 



IV 



It is a mistake to suppose that there was any- 
thing sordid in the character or philosophy of 
Franklin. It is true that he taught that " honesty 
is the best policy." So the Sermon on the Mount 
declares that the righteous shall have their reward. 
But he was one of the most benevolent and public- 
spirited of men. He believed in pecuniary inde- 
pendence as a vitally important means of happiness 
and usefulness, and as a shield against temptation. 
Leaving school at ten years of age, starting in life 
substantially pennyless, dependent upon his own 
exertions, passing his youth in a country which 
was in a state of extreme poverty, he felt and taught 
that economy was a pressing duty. When a boy 
he left his boarding house and lived on less than 
fifty cents a week so that he might have more 
money to buy books ; but he never saved a cent for 
the sake of the cent ; and from his early youth he 
loved knowledge, self-improvement, his country and 
his kind more than money. At forty-two, having 
acquired a modest competence, he retired from 
active business, and devoted forty-two years more 
to these other ojects. 

In boyhood he prepared for his own use certain 
rules of cunduct to which he adhered during his 
youth and early manhood, and by which he was 
largely guided all his life. By practicing these 
methods, largely aided, of course, by circumstances. 



he probably enjoyed and accomplished as much 
as any man of his generation. 

The number of elements which went to the 
making of the life and character of Franklin, and 
which are illustrated in the following pages, is 
remarkable. Enterprise and prudence, energy 
and moderation, the achievement of pecuniary 
independence without avarice, economy coupled 
with benevolence and public spirit, the best 
methods of industry, temperance, the use of time, 
manners, the value of friends and how to select 
and retain them, the arts of conversation, discus- 
sion and debate, the management and use of clubs 
and other associations, the most successful methods 
of acquiring and exerting influence and of accom- 
plishing results, how to select and read books, 
how to write, how to acquire languages and other 
knowledge, how to mingle wit and wisdom, sobri- 
ety and humor, how wisely to conduct one's self soci- 
ally, politically, morally and religiously ; in fact all 
the characteristics and methods by which Franklin 
rose from poverty ignorance and obscurity to 
wealth, learning and fame are in this little book 
described and illustrated by a man not surpassed 
by any historical character in common sense ; and 
all are portrayed in a style so delightful that there 
is not a dull page in it. It also constitutes an 



VI 



interesting picture of the manners and customs o( 
our country during the first half of the last century. 

It is not expected that the example of Franklin 
can or should be followed in its details, at the 
present day ; but the instructions and life of this 
great American should be recalled to the memory 
of every succeeding generation. Next to his 
native strength and breadth of mind, his boyish 
passion for the best books doubtless did more than 
any other cause to make him what he was. 
Among them was Plutarch's Lives, a thorough 
acquaintance with which is of itself a kind of 
liberal education. An interest in these lives and 
a love of books ought never to go out of fashion. 

Our young Benjamin was very poor when, an 
utter stranger and with about a dollar in his pocket, 
he became a resident of Philadelphia ; but there 
are many boys and girls in Buffalo much poorer 
than he was, because he was a skilful printer, and 
every young man or woman who has acquired a 
trade and is skilful in it has already laid the foun- 
dation of an almost sure success, if the lessons of 
Franklin's life in Philadelphia are duly studied and 
heeded. As to the boys and girls who are de- 
pressed by poverty and have no trade, I am sure 
that if they will read this volume it will encourage 
them to get one as soon as possible, and also to 
see, that while they cannot all be Franklins', they 



Vll 

can (unless prevented by unusual misfortunes) 
become respected and prosperous. I earnestly 
wish this little book might have the widest circu- 
lation among such young people ; and I am un- 
selfish in this wish, as it will be sold at the cost of 
its publication. 

I have added a brief chronological statement of 
the leading events of Franklin's life subsequent to 
the period embraced in his autobiography, so that 
it may be seen what were the results in his old age 
of the habits of his youth. 

I understand how small is my contribution to 
the value of this book, and I should not sub- 
scribe my name to this preface but for the hope that 
my recommendation may increase its circulation. 

E. C. SPRAGUE. 
Buffalo, Dec. 15th, i8gi. 



AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 



Josiah Franklin, my father, married young, and 
carried his wife with three children to New England, 
about 1685. By the same wife he had four children 
more born there, and by a second wife ten others, in all 
seventeen ; of whom I remember thirteen sitting together 
at his table, who all grew up to years of maturity and 
were married ; 1 was the youngest son, and the youngest 
of all the children, excepting two daughters. I was 
born in Boston, in New England. My mother, the 
second wife, was Abiah Folger, daughter of Peter 
Folger, one of the first settlers of New England. 

I was put to the grammar-school at eight years of age, 
my father intending to devote me, as the tithe of his 
sons, to the service of the Church. I continued at the 
grammar-school rather less than a year, though in that 
time I had risen gradually from the middle of the class of 
that year to be at the head of it, and was removed 
into the next class, whence I was to be placed in the 
third at the end of the year. But my father, burdened 
with a numerous family, was unable to support the ex- 
pense of a college education, took me from the grammar- 
school, and sent me to a school for writing and arith- 
metic, kept by a then famous man, Mr. George 



Brownell, successful in his profession. Under him I 
learned to write a good hand pretty soon, but I failed 
in the arithmetic. At ten years old I was taken to help 
my father in his business, which was that of a tallow- 
chandler and soap-boiler. Accordingly, I was employed 
in cutting wicks for the candles, filling the dipping 
mould and the moulds for cast candles, attending the 
shop, going of errands, etc. 

I disliked the trade, and had a strong inclination to 
go to sea, but my father declared against it ; but 
residing near the water, I was much in and on it. 
I learned to swim well, and to manage boats. 

I continued thus employed in my father's business for 
two years, that is, till I was twelve years old; and my 
brother John, who was bred to that business, having left 
my father, married, and set up for himself at Rhode 
Island, there was every appearance that I was destined to 
supply his place, and become a tallow-chandler. But 
my dislike to the trade continuing, my father had appre- 
hensions that if he did not find one to put me to more 
agreeable, I should break loose and get to sea, as his son 
Josiah had done, to his great vexation. In con- 
sequence he took me to walk with him, and see joiners, 
bricklayers, turners, braziers, etc., at their work, that 
he might observe my inclination, and endeavor to fix it 
on some trade that would keep me on land. It has ever 
since been a pleasure to me to see good workmen handle 
their tools, and it has been often useful to me to have 
learned so much by it as to be able to do jobs myself 
in the house when a workman was not at hand, and to 



construct little machines for my experiments, when the 
intention of making these experiments was fresh and 
warm in my mind. My father determined at last for 
the cutler's trade, and placed me for some days on trial 
with Samuel, son to my uncle Benjamin. But the sum 
he exacted as a fee displeasing my father, I was taken 
home again. 

From my infancy I was fond of reading, and all the 
money that came into my hands was laid out in books. 
My first acquisition was Bunyan's works in separate little 
volumes. I afterward sold them to enable me to buy 
R. Burton's Historical Collections; they were small 
chapmen's books, and cheap, forty in all. My 
father's little library consisted chiefly of books in 
polemic divinity, most of which I read. I have 
often regretted that, at a time when I had such a thirst 
for knowledge, more proper books had not fallen in my 
way. Plutarch's Lives I read abundantly, and I still 
think that time spent to great advantage. There was 
also a book of De Foe's, called an Essay on Projecfs, 
and another of Dr. Mather's, called an Essay to do 
Goody which perhaps gave me a turn of thinking that 
had an influence on some of the principle future events 
of my life. 

This bookish inclination at length determined my 
father to make me a printer, though he had already one 
son (James) of that profession. In 171 7 my brother 
James returned from England with a press and letters to 
set up his business in Boston. I liked it much better 
than that of my father, but still had a hankering for the 



sea. To prevent the apprehended effect of such an 
inchnation, my father was impatient to have me bound 
to my brother. I stood out some time, but at last was 
persuaded, and signed the indenture when I was yet 
but twelve years old. I was to serve an apprenticeship 
till I was twenty-one years of age, only I was to be 
allowed journeyman's wages during the last year. In a 
little time I made great progress in the business, and 
became a useful hand to my brother. I now had access 
to better books. An acquaintance with the apprentices 
of booksellers enabled me sometimes to borrow a small 
one, which I was careful to return soon and clean. 
Often I sat up in my chamber reading the greatest part of 
the night, when the book was borrowed in the evening 
and to be returned in the morning, lest it should be 
found missing. 

There was another bookish lad in the town, John 
Collins by name, with whom I was intimately acquainted. 
We sometimes disputed, and very fond we were of argu- 
ment, and very desirous of confuting one another, 
which disputatious turn, by the way, is apt to become a 
very bad habit, .making people often extremely disagree- 
able in company by the contradiction that is necessary 
to bring it into practice ; and thence, besides souring 
and spoiling the conversation, it is productive of disgusts 
and perhaps enmities. I had caught it by reading my 
father's books of dispute on religion. Persons of good 
sense, I have since observed, seldom fall into it, except 
lawyers, university men, and men of all sorts who have 
been bred at Edinburgh. 



5 

About this time I met with an odd volume of the 
Spectator. I had never before seen any of them. 
I bought it, read it over and over, and was much 
delighted with it. I thought the writing excellent, 
and wished, if possible, to imitate it. With this 
view I took some of the papers, and making short 
hints of the sentiments in each sentence, laid them by a 
few days, and then, without looking at the book, tried 
to complete the papers again, by expressing each hinted 
sentiment at length, and as fuily as it had been expressed 
before, in any suitable words that should occur to me. 
Then I compared my Spectator with the original, dis- 
covered some of my faults, and corrected them. But I 
found I wanted a stock of words, or a readiness in 
recollecting and using them. 

Therefore I took some of the tales and turned them 
into verse ; and, after a time, when I had pretty well 
forgotten the prose, turned them back again. I also 
sometimes jumbled my collection of hints into con- 
fusion, and after some weeks endeavored to reduce them 
into the best order, before I began to form the full 
sentences and complete the paper. This was to teach 
me method in the arrangement of the thoughts. By 
comparing my work with the original, I dis- 
covered many faults and corrected them; but I some- 
times had the pleasure to fancy that, in certain 
particulars of small consequence, I had been fortunate 
enough to improve the method or the language, and 
this encouraged me to think I might m time come to 
be a tolerable English writer, of which I was extremely 



ambitious. The time I allotted for these exercises and 
for reading was at night, or before work began in the 
morning, or on Sundays, when I contrived to be in 
the printing-house, evading as much as I could the 
constant attendance at public worship which my father 
used to exact of me when I was under his care. 

When about sixteen years of age I happened to meet 
with a book, written by one Tryon, recommending a 
vegetable diet. I determined to go into it. My 
brother, being yet unmarried, did not keep house, but 
boarded himself and his apprentices in another family. 
My refusing to eat flesh occasioned an inconveniency, 
and I was frequently chid for my singularity. I made 
myself acquainted with Tryon' s manner of preparing 
some of his dishes, such as boiling potatoes or rice, 
making hasty pudding, and a few others, and then pro- 
posed to my brother that if he would give me, weekly, 
half the money he paid for my board, I would board 
myself. He instantly agreed to it and I presently found 
that I could save half what he paid me. This was an 
additional fund for buying books, but I had another 
advantage in it. My brother and the rest going from 
the printing-house to their meals, I remained there 
alone, and dispatching presently my light repast, (which 
often was no more than a biscuit or a slice of bread, a 
handful of raisins or a tart from the pastry-cook's, and 
a glass of water), had the rest of the time till their 
return for study, in which I made the greater progress, 
from that greater clearness of head and quicker ai:)pre- 



hension which generally attend temperance in eating and 
drinking. 

Now it was that, being on some occasion made 
ashamed of my ignorance in figures, which I had twice 
failed learning when at school, I took Cocker's book 
on arithmetic, and went through the whole by myself 
with the greatest ease. I also read Seller's and Sturny's 
book of Navigation, and became acquainted with the 
little geometry it contains ; but never proceeded far in 
that science. I read about this time Locke On the 
Human Understanding, and the Art of Thinking, by 
Messrs. du Port Royal. 

While I was intent on improving my language, I met 
with an English Grammar (I think it was Greenwood's), 
having at the end of it two little sketches on the 
arts of rhetoric and logic, the latter finishing with a 
specimen of a dispute in the Socratic method ; and soon 
after I procured Xenophon's Memorable Things of 
Socrates, wherein there are many examples of the same 
method. I was charmed with it, adopted it, dropped 
my abrupt contradiction and positive argumentation, 
and put on the humble inquirer. I continued this 
method some few years, but gradually left it, retaining 
only the habit of expressing myself in terms of 
modest diffidence ; never using, when I advance 
anything that may possibly be disputed, the words 
certainly, u7idoubtedly, or any others that give the air of 
positiveness to an opinion ; but rather say, I conceive 
or apprehend a thing to be so and so ; it appears to me, 
or I should think it so or so, for such and such reasons ; 



8 

or J imagine it to be so ; or // is so if I am not mistaken. 
This habit, I believe, has been of great advantage to me 
when I have had occasion to inculcate my opinions, and 
persuade men into measures that I have been from time 
to time engaged in promoting; and as the chief ends 
of conversation are to inform or to be informed, to 
please or to persuade, I wish well-meaning and sensible 
men would not lessen their power of doing good by a 
positive, assuming manner, that seldom fails to disgust, 
tends to create opposition, and to defeat every one of 
those purposes for which speech was given to us. 

My brother had, in 1720 or 1721, begun to print a 
newspaper. It was the second that appeared in America, 
and was called the Neiu England Coiirant. The only 
one before it was the Boston News-Letter. I was em- 
ployed to carry the papers to the customers. 

He had some ingenious men among his friends, who 
amused themselves by writing little pieces for this paper, 
which gained it credit and made it more in demand, 
and these gentlemen often visited us. Hearing their 
conversations, and their accounts of the approbation 
their papers were received with, I was excited to try my 
hand among them ; but being still a boy, and suspect- 
ing that my brother would object to printing anything 
of mine in his paper if he knew it to be mine, I con- 
trived to disguise my hand, and writing an anonymous 
paper, I put it in at night under the door of the print- 
ing-house. It was found in the morning, and communi- 
cated to his writing friends when they called m as usual. 
They read it, commented on it in my hearing, and I 



had the exquisite pleasure of finding it met with their 
approbation, and that in their different guesses at the 
author, none were named but men of some character 
among us for learning and ingenuity. I suppose that 
I was rather lucky in my judges, and that they were 
not really so very good ones as I then believed them 
to be. 

Encouraged, however, by this attempt, I wrote and 
sent in the same way to the press several other pieces 
that were equally approved ; and I kept my secret till 
all my fund of sense for such performances was 
exhausted, and then discovered it, when I began to be 
considered a little more by my brother's acquaintance. 
That did not quite please him, as he thought it tended 
to make me too vain. This might be one occasion 
of the differences that we began to have about this 
time. Though a brother, he considered himself as 
my master, and me as his apprentice, and, accordingly, 
expected the same services from me as he would from 
another, while I thought he degraded me too much in 
some he required of me, who from a brother expected 
more indulgence. Our disputes were often brought 
before our father, and I fancy I was either generally in 
the right, or else a better pleader, because the judgment 
was generally in my favor. But my brother was 
passionate, and had often beaten me, which I took ex- 
tremely amiss; and, thinking my apprenticeship very 
tedious, I was continually wishing for some opportunity 
of shortening it, which at length offered in a manner 
unexpected. Perhaps this harsh and tyrannical treat- 



lO 

ment of me might be a means of impressing me with the 
aversion to arbitrary power that has stuck to me through 
my whole life. 

One of the pieces in our newspaper on some political 
point, which I have now forgotten, gave offence to the 
Assembly. My brother was taken up, censured, and 
imprisoned for a month, by the speaker's warrant, I 
suppose, because he would not discover the author. I 
too was taken up and examined before the council ; but, 
though I did not give them any satisfaction, they con- 
tented themselves with admonishing me, and dismissed 
me, considering me, perhaps, as an apprentice, who was 
bound to keep his master's secrets. 

During my brother's confinement, which I resented a 
good deal, notwithstanding our private differences, I 
had the management of the paper ; and I made bold to 
give our rulers some rubs in it, which my brother took 
very kindly, while others began to consider me in an 
unfavorable light, as a youth that had a turn for libelling 
and satire. My brother's discharge was accompanied 
with an order (a very odd one), that ''James Franklin 
should no longe? print the paper called the New England 
Courant. ' ' 

On a consultation held in our printing-house among 
his friends, what he should do in this conjuncture, 
it was proposed to elude the order by changing the 
name of the paper; but my brother, seeing incon- 
veniences in this, came to a conclusion as a better way, 
to let the paper be printed in future under the name 
of Benjamin Franklin ; and to avoid the censure of 



II 

the Assembly, that might fall on him as still printing it 
by his apprentice, he consented that my old indenture 
should be returned to me, with a discharge on the back 
of it, to show in case of necessity ; and in order to 
secure to him the benefit of my service, I should sign 
new indentures for the remainder of my time, which 
were to be kept private. A very flimsy scheme it was ; 
however, it wa-s immediately executed, and the paper 
was printed accordingly, under my name for several 
months. 

At length, a fresh difference arising between my 
brother and me, I took upon me to assert my freedom, 
presuming that he would not venture to produce the 
new indentures. It was not fair in me to take this 
advantage, and this I therefore reckon one of the first 
errata of my life ; but the unfairness of it weighed little 
with me, when under the impressions of resentment for 
the blows his passion too often urged him to bestow 
upon me, though he was otherwise not an ill-natured 
man : perhaps I was too saucy and provoking. 

When he found I would leave him, he took care to 
prevent my getting employment in any other printing- 
house of the town, by going round and speaking to 
every master, who accordingly refused to give me work. 
I then thought of going to New York, as the nearest 
place where there was a printer; and I was rather 
inclined to leave Boston when I reflected that I had 
already made myself a little obnoxious to the governing 
party, and from the arbitrary proceedings of the 
Assembly in my brother's case, it was likely I might, il 



12 

I Stayed, soon bring myself into scrapes. My friend 
Collins agreed with the captain of a New York sloop 
to take me. I sold my books to raise a little money, 
was taken on board the sloop privately, had a fair wind, 
and in three days found myself at New York, near 
three hundred miles from home, at the age of seven- 
teen, without the least recommendation to, or knowl- 
edge of any person in the place, and very little money 
in my pocket. 

Conceiving myself a pretty good workman, I offered 
my service to a printer in the place, old Mr, William 
Bradford, who had been the first printer in Pennsylvania, 
but removed thence in consequence of a quarrel with 
the Governor George Keith. He could give me no 
employment, having little to do, and hands enough 
already; but he said, "My son at Philadelphia has 
lately lost his principal hand, Aquila Rose, by death ; 
if you go thither, I believe he may employ you." 
Philadelphia was one hundred miles further; I set out, 
however, in a boat for Amboy, leaving my chest and 
things to follow me round by sea. 

In crossing the bay, we met with a squall that tore 
our rotten sails to pieces, prevented our getting into the 
Kill, and drove us upon Long Island. On approach- 
ing the island, we found it was in a place where there 
could be no landing, there being a great surge on the 
stony beach. So we dropped anchor, and swung out 
our cable towards the shore. In this manner we lay 
all night with very little rest ; but the wind abating the 
next day we made a shift to reach Amboy before night. 



13 

In the evening I found myself very feverish, and 
went to bed; but having read somewhere that cold 
water drank plentifully was good for a fever, I followed 
the prescription, and sweat plentifully most of the night. 
My fever left me, and in the morning, crossing the 
ferry, I proceeded on my journey on foot, having fifty 
miles to go to Burlington, where I was told I should find 
boats that would carry me the rest of the way to 
Philadelphia. 

It rained very hard all the day; I was thoroughly 
soaked, and by noon a good deal tired ; so I stopped at 
a poor inn, where I stayed all night, beginning now to 
wish I had never left home. I made so miserable a 
figure, too, that I found, by the questions asked me, 
I was suspected to be some runaway indentured servant, 
and in danger of being taken up on that suspicion. 
However, I proceeded next day, and got in the evening 
to an inn, within eight or ten miles of Burlington, kept 
by one Dr. Brown. 

At his house I lay that night, and the next morning 
reached Burlington, but had the mortification to find 
that the regular boats were gone a little before 
and no other expected to go before Tuesday, this 
this being Saturday. However, walking in the evening 
by the side of the river, a boat came by, which I found 
was going towards Phdadelphia, with several people in 
her. They took me in, and, as there was no wind, we 
rowed all the way ; and about midnight, not having yet 
seen the city, some of the company were confident we 
must have passed it, and would row no farther ; the 



14 

others knew not where we were ; so we put towards the 
shore, got into a creek, landed near an old fence, with 
the rails of which we made a fire, the night being cold, 
in October, and there we remained till daylight. Then 
one of the company knew the place to be Cooper's 
Creek, a little above Philadelphia, which we saw as soon 
as we got out of the creek, and arrived there about 
eight or nine o'clock on Sunday morning, and 
landed at Market Street wharf. 

I have been the more particular in this description of 
my journey, and shall be so of my first entry into that 
city, that you may in your mind compare such unlikely 
beginnings with the figure I have since made there. I 
was in my working-dress, my best clothes being coming 
round by sea. I was dirty from my being so long in 
the boat. My pockets were stuffed out with shirts and 
stockings, and I knew no one nor where to look for 
lodging. Fatigued with walking, rowing, and the want 
of sleep, I was very hungry; and my whole stock of 
cash consisted in a single dollar, and about a shilling 
in copper coin. The latter I gave to the boatmen for 
my passage. At first they refused it on account of my 
having rowed ; but I insisted on their taking it. Man 
is sometimes more generous when he has little money 
than when he has plenty, perhaps to prevent his being 
thought to have but little. 

I walked towards the top of the street, gazing about 
till near Market Street, where I met a boy with bread. 
I had often made a meal of dry bread, and inquiring 
where he had bought it, I went immediately to the 



baker's he directed me to, Second Street. I asked for 
biscuits, intending such as we had at Boston ; but that 
sort, it seems, were not made in Philadelphia. Then I 
asked for a three-penny loaf, and was told they had 
none. Not knowing the different prices^ I told him to 
give me three-penny worth of any sort. He gave me, 
accordingly, three great puffy rolls. I was surprised at 
the quantity, but took it, and having no room in my 
pockets, walked off with a roll under each arm, and eat- 
ing the other. Thus I went up Market Street as far as 
Fourth Street, passing by the door of Mr. Read, my 
future wife's father; when she, standing at the door, 
saw me, and thought I made, as I certainly did, a most 
awkward, ridiculous appearance. Then I turned and 
went down Chestnut Street and part of Walnut Street, 
eating my roll all the way, and coming round, found 
myself again at Market Street wharf, near the boat I 
came in, to which I went for a draught of the river 
water ; and being filled with one of my rolls, gave the 
other two to a woman and her child that came down the 
river in the boat with us, and were waiting to go 
farther. 

Thus refreshed, I walked again up the street, which 
by this time had many clean-dressed people in it, who 
were all walking the same way. I joined them, and 
thereby was led into the great meeting-house of the 
Quakers near the market. I sat down among them, and 
after looking round a while and hearing nothing said, 
being very drowsy through labor and want of rest the 
preceding night, I fell fast asleep, and continued so 



i6 

till the meeting broke up, when some one was kind 
enough to rouse me. This was, therefore, the first house 
I was in or slept in, in Philadelphia. 

I then walked down towards the river, and looking in 
the faces of every one, I met a young Quaker man, 
whose countenance pleased me, and, accosting him, re- 
quested he would tell me where a stranger could get a 
lodging. We were then near the sign of the Three 
Mariners. '^Here," said he, " is a house that enter- 
tains strangers, but it is not a reputable one ; if thee 
wilt walk with me, I'll show thee a better one." He 
brought me to the Crooked Billet in Water Street. 
There I got a dinner; and while I was eating, several 
questions were asked me. as from my youth and appear- 
ance, I was suspected of being a runaway. 

After dinner, my host having shown me to a bed, I 
laid myself on it without undressing, and slept till six 
in the evening, when I was called to supper, went to 
bed again very early, and slept soundly till next 
morning. Then I made myself as neat as I could, and 
went to Andrew Bradford the printer. I found in the 
shop the old man his father, whom I had seen at New 
York, and who, traveling on horseback, had got to 
Philadelphia before me. He introduced me to his son. 
who received me civilly, gave me a breakfast, but told 
me he did not at present want a hand, being lately 
supplied with one ; but there was another printer in 
town, lately set up, one Keimer, who, perhaps, might 
employ me; if not, I should be welcome to lodge at his 



17 

house, and he would give me a little work to do now 
and then till fuller business should offer. 

The old gentleman said he would go with me to the 
new printer; and when we found him, "Neighbor," 
says Bradford, " I have brought to see you a young man 
of your business; perhaps you may want such a one." 
He asked me a few questions, put a composing stick in 
my hand to see how I worked, and then said he would 
employ me soon, though he had just then nothing for 
me to do ; and taking old Bradford, whom he had never 
seen before, to be one of the town's people that had a 
good will for him, entered into a conversation on his 
present undertaking and prospects ; while Bradford, not 
discovering that he was the other printer's father, on 
Keimer's saying he expected soon to get the greatest 
part of the business into his own hands, drew him on 
by artful questions, and starting little doubts, to explain 
all his views, what interests he relied on, and in what 
manner he intended to proceed. I, who stood by and 
heard all, saw immediately that one of them was a crafty 
old sophister, and the other a mere novice. Bradford 
left me with Keimer, w^ho was greatly surprised when I 
told him who the old man was. 

The printing-house, I found, consisted of an old 
damaged press, and one small, worn-out fount of English 
types, which he was using himself, composing an Elegy 
on Aquila Rose, before mentioned, an ingenious young 
man, of excellent character, much respected in the 
town, secretary to the Assembly, and a pretty poet. 
Keimer made verses too, but very indifferently. He 



i8 

could not he said io write them, for his manner was to 
compose them in the types directly out of his head. 
There being no copy, but oue pair of cases, and the 
Elegy requiring all the letter, no one could help him. 
I endeavored to put his press (which he had not yet 
used, and of which he understood nothing) into order 
to be worked with ; and promising to come and print 
off his Elegy as soon as he should have got it ready, I 
returned to Bradford's, who gave me a little job to do 
for the present, and there I lodged and dieted. A few 
days after, Keimer sent for me to print off the Elegy. 
And now he had got another pair of cases, and a 
pamphlet to reprint, on which he set me to work. 

These two printers I found poorly qualified for their 
business. Bradford had not been bred to it, and was 
very illiterate ; and Keimer, though something of a 
scholar, was a mere compositor knowing nothing of 
presswork. He did not like my lodging at Bradford's 
while I worked with him. He had a house indeed, but 
without furniture, so he could not lodge me ; but he got 
me a lodging at Mr. Read's before mentioned, who was 
the owner of his house ; and my chest of clothes being 
come by this time, I made rather a more respectable 
appearance in the eyes of Miss Read than I had done 
when she first happened to see me eating my roll in the 
street. 

I began now to have some acquaintance among the 
young peoi)le of the town that were lovers of reading, 
with whom I spent my evenings very pleasantly ; and 
gained money by my industry and frugality. I lived 



19 

v^ery contented, and forgot Boston as much as I could, 
and did not wish it should be known where I resided 
except to my friend Collins, who was in the secret, and 
kept it. At length, an incident happened that occa- 
sioned my return home much sooner than I had in- 
tended. I had a brother-in-law, Robert Holmes, master 
of a sloop that traded between Boston and Delaware. 
He being at Newcastle, forty miles below Philadelphia, 
and hearing of me, wrote me a letter mentioning the 
grief of my friends in Boston at my abrupt departure, 
assuring me of their good-will to me, and that every- 
thing would be accommodated to my mind if I would 
return ; to which he entreated me earnestly. I wrote 
an answer to his letter, thanked him for his advice, but 
stated my reasons for leaving Boston so fully and in 
such a light as to convince him that I was not so much 
in the wrong as he had apprehended. 

Sir William Keith, Governor of the Province, was 
then at Newcastle, and Captain Holmes, happening to 
be in company with him when my letter came to hand, 
spoke to him of me, and showed him the letter. The 
governor read it, and seemed surprised when he was 
told my age. He said I appeared a young man of 
promising parts, and therefore should be encouraged ; 
the printers at Philadelphia were wretched ones ; and, 
if I would set up there, he made no doubt I should 
succeed ; for his part, he would procure me the public 
business, and do me every other service in his power. 
This my brother-in-law afterwards told me in Boston, 
but I knew as yet nothing of it ; when, one day, 



Keimer and I being at work together near the window, 
we saw the governor and another gentleman (who 
proved to be Colonel French of Newcastle), finely 
dressed, come directly across the street to our house, 
and heard them at the door. 

Keimer ran down immediately, thinking it a visit to 
him ; but the governor inquired for me, came up, and 
with a condescension and politeness I had been quite 
unused to, made me many compliments, desired to be 
acquainted with me, blamed me kindly for not having 
made myself known to him when I first came to the 
place, and would have me away with him to the tavern, 
where he was going with Colonel French to taste, as he 
said, some excellent Madeira. I was not a little sur- 
prised, and Keimer stared with astonishment. I went, 
however, with the governor and Colonel French to a 
tavern, at the corner of Third Street, and over the 
Madeira he proposed my setting up my business. He 
stated the probabilities of my success, and both he and 
Colonel French assured me I should have their interest 
and influence in procuring the public business of both 
governments. As I expressed doubts that my father 
would assist me in it. Sir William said he would give me 
a letter to him, in which he would set forth the ad- 
vantages, and he did not doubt he should determine 
him to comply. So it was concluded I should return 
to Boston by the first vessel, with the governor's letter 
to my father. In the meantime it was to be kept a 
secret, and I went on working with Keimer as usual. 
The governor sent for me now and then to dine with 



21 

him, which I considered a great honor, as he conversed 
with me in a mosl affable, familiar, and friendly 
manner. 

About the end of April, 1724, a little vessel ofiered 
for Boston. ] took leave of Keimer as going to see my 
friends. The governor gave me an ample letter, saying 
many flattering things of me to my father, and strongly 
recommending the project of my setting up at Phila- 
delphia as a thing that would make my fortune. We 
struck on a shoal in going down the bay, and sprung a 
leak ; we had a blustering time at sea, and were obliged 
to pump almost continually, at which I took my turn. 
We arrived safe, however, at Boston in about a fort- 
night. I had been absent seven months, and my friends 
had heard nothing of me ; for my brother Holmes was 
not yet returned, and had not written about me. My 
unexpected appearance surprised the family ; all were, 
however, very glad to see me, and made me welcome, 
except my brother. I went to see him at his printing- 
house. I was better dressed than ever while in his 
service, having a genteel new suit from head to foot, a 
watch, and my pockets lined with near five pounds 
sterling in silver. He received me not very frankly, 
looked me all over, and turned to his work again. 

The journeymen were inquisitive where I had been, 
what sort of a country it was, and how I liked it. I 
praised it much, and the happy life I led in it ; ex- 
pressing strongly my intention of returning to it ; and 
one of them asking what kind of money we had there, 
I produced a handful of silver, and spread it before 



them, which was a kind of i-are show they had not been 
used to, paper being the money of Boston. Then I 
took an opportunity of letting them see my watch ; 
and, lastly (my brother still grum and sullen), I gave 
them a dollar to drink, and took my leave. This 
visit of mine offended him extremely; for, when my 
mother some time after spoke to him of a recon- 
ciliation, and of her wishes to see us on good terms 
together, and that we might live for the future as 
brothers, he said I had insulted him in such a manner 
before his people that he could never forget or forgive 
it. In this, however, he was mistaken. 

My father received the governor's letter with some 
surprise, but said little of it to me for some time, 
when Captain Holmes returning, he showed it to him, 
and asked him if he knew Sir William Keith, and 
what kind of man he was ; adding that he must be of 
small discretion to think of setting a youth up in business 
who wanted three years to arrive at man's estate. 
Holmes said what he could in favor of the project, but 
my father was decidedly against it, and at last gave a 
flat denial. He wrote a civil letter to Sir William, 
thanking him for the patronage he had so kindly 
offered me, but declining to assist me as yet in setting 
up, I being, in his opinion, too young to be trusted 
with the management of an undertaking so important, 
and for which the preparation was so expensive. 

My father, though he did not approve Sir William's 
proposition, was yet pleased that I had been able to 
obtain so advantageous a character from a person of such 



23 

note where I had resided, and that I had Ijeen so 
industrious and careful as to equip myself so handsomely 
in so short a time; therefore, seeing no prospect of an 
accommodation between my brother and me, he gave 
his consent to my returning again to Philadelphia, ad- 
vised me to behave respectfully to the people there, 
endeavor to obtain the general esteem, and avoid 
lampooning and libelling, to which he thought I had 
too much inclination; telling me, that by steady indus- 
try and prudent parsimony I might save enough by the 
time I was one-and-twenty to set me up ; and that, if 
came near the matter, he would help me out with the 
rest. This was all I could obtain, except some small 
gifts as tokens of his and my mother's love, when I em- 
barked again for New York, now with their approbation 
and their blessing. 

The sloop putting in at Newport, Rhode Island, I 
visited my brother John, who had been married and 
settled there some years. He received me very affec- 
tionately, for he always loved me. A friend of his, 
one Vernon, having some money due to him in Penn- 
sylvania, about thirty-five pounds currency, desired I 
would recover it for him, and keep it till I had his 
directions what to employ it in. Accordingly he gave 
me an order to receive it. This business afterwards 
occasioned me a good deal of uneasiness. 

At New York I found my friend Collins, who had 
arrived there some time before me. We proceeded to 
Philadelphia. I received in the way Vernon's money, 
without which we could hardly have finished our jour- 



24 

ney. Collins continued lodging and boarding at the 
same house with me, and at my expense. Knowing I 
had that money of Vernon's he was continually borrow- 
ing of me, still promising repayment as soon as he 
should be in business. At length he had got so much 
of it that I was distressed to think what I should do in 
case of being called on to remit it. 

The violation of my trust respecting Vernon's money 
was one of the first great errata of my life ; and this 
showed that my father was not much out in his judgment 
when he considered me too young to manage busi- 
ness. But Sir William, on reading his letter, said 
he was too prudent, that there was great difference in 
persons; and discretion did not always accompany 
years, nor was youth always without it. ''But since 
he will not set you up, I will do it myself. Give 
me an inventory of the things necessary to be had 
from England, and I will send for them. You shall re- 
pay me when you are able ; I am resolved to have a 
good printer here, and I am sure you must succeed.** 
This was spoken with such an appearance of cordiality 
that I had not the least doubt of his meaning what he 
said. I had hitherto kept the proposition of my setting 
up a secret in Philadelphia, and I still kept it. Had it 
been known that I depended on the governor, probably 
some friend, that knew him better, would have advised 
me not to rely on him, as I afterwards heard it as his 
known character to be liberal of promises which he 
never meant to keep. Yet, unsolicited as he was by 



25 

me, how could I think his generous offers insincere ? I 
beHeved him one of the best men in the world. 

I presented him an inventory of a litttle printing- 
house, amounting by my computation to about one 
hundred pounds sterling. He liked it, but asked me if 
my being on the spot in England to choose the types, 
and see that everything was good of the kind, might 
not be of some advantage. "Then," said he, "when 
there, you may make acquaintance, and establish corres- 
pondences in the book-selling and stationery line." I 
agreed that this might be advantageous. " Then," says 
he, " get yourself ready to go with Annis," which was 
the annual ship, and the only one at that time usually 
passing between London and Philadelphia. But as it 
would be some months before Annis sailed, I con- 
tinued working with Keimer, fretting extremely about the 
money Collins had got from me, and in great appre- 
hensions of being called upon for it by Vernon ; this, 
however, did not happen tor some years after. 

I believe I have omitted mentioning that, in my first 
voyage from Boston, being becalmed off Block Island, 
our people employed themselves in catching cod, and 
hauled up a great number. Till then I had stuck to my 
resolution of eating nothing that had had life, and on 
this occasion I considered, according to my master 
Tryon, the taking every fish as a kind of unprovoked 
murder, since none of them had, or could do us any 
injury that might justify this massacre. All this 
seemed very reasonable. But I had formerly been 
a great lover of fish, and, when this came out of the 



frying-pan, it smelt admirably well. I balanced some 
time between principle and inclination, till recol- 
lecting that, when the fish were opened, I saw 
smaller fish taken out of their stomachs ; then thought 
I, ''If you eat one another, I don't see why we may- 
n't eat you." So I dined upon cod very heartily, and 
continued to eat as other people, returning only now 
and then occasionally to a vegetable diet. So con- 
venient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it 
enables one to find or make a reason for everything one 
has a mind to do. 

The governor, seeming to like my company, had me 
frequently at his house, and his setting me up was always 
mentioned as a fixed thing. I was to take with me 
letters recommendatory to a number of his friends, 
besides the letter of credit to furnish me with the 
necessary money for purchasing the press, types, paper, 
etc. For these letters I was appointed to call at 
different times, when they were to be ready ; but a 
future time was still named. Thus we went on till the 
ship, whose departure too had been several times post- 
poned, was on the point of sailing. Then, when I 
called to take my leave and receive the letters, his 
secretary. Dr. Baird, came out to me and said the gov- 
ernor was extremely busy in writing, but would be down 
at Newcastle before the ship, and then the letters would 
be delivered to me. 

I quitted Philadelphia in the ship, which anchored at 
Newcastle. The governor was there ; but when I went 
to his lodging, the secretary came to me from him with 



27 

expressions of the greatest regret that he could not then 
see me, being engaged in business of the utmost im- 
portance, but that he would send the letters to me on 
board, wishing me heartily a good voyage and a speedy 
return, etc. I returned on board a little puzzled, but 
still not doubting. 

Mr. Andrew Hamilton, a celebrated lawyer of Phil- 
adelphia, had taken his passage in the same ship for him- 
self and son, with Mr. Denham, a Quaker merchant, 
and Messrs. Oniam and Russel, masters of an iron work 
in Maryland, who had engaged the great cabin; so 
that a friend of mine, Ralph, and I were forced to take 
up with a berth in the steerage, and none on board 
knowing us, we were considered as ordinary persons. 
But Mr. Hamilton and his son (it was James, since 
governor) returned from Newcastle to Philadelphia, 
the father being recalled by a great fee to plead 
for a seized ship; and, just before we sailed, Colonel 
French coming on board, and showing me great 
respect, I was more taken notice of, and, with my friend 
Ralph, invited by the other gentlemen to come into the 
cabin, there being now room. Accordingly, we re- 
moved thither. 

Understanding that Colonel French had brought on 
board the governor's dispatches, I asked the captain for 
those letters that were to be under my care. He said 
all were put into the bag together and he could not then 
come at them; but, before we landed in England, I 
should have an opportunity of picking them out ; so I 
was satisfied for the present, and we proceeded on our 



voyage. We had a sociable company in the cabin, and 
lived uncommonly well, having the addition of all Mr. 
Hamilton's stores, who had laid in plentifully. In this 
passage Mr. Denham contracted a friendship for me that 
continued during his life. The voyage was otherwise 
not a pleasant one, as we had a great deal of bad 
weather. 

When we came into the Channel, the captain kept 
his word with me, and gave me an opportunity of ex- 
amining the bag for the governor's letters. I found 
none upon which my name was put as under my care. 
I picked out six or seven, that, by the handwriting, I 
thought might be the promised letters, especially as one 
of them was directed to Baskett, the king's printer, and 
another to some stationer. We arrived in London the 
24th of December, 1724. I waited upon the stationer, 
M^ho came first in my way, delivering the letter as from 
Governor Keith. *' I don't know such a person," says 
he ; but, opening the letter, '' Oh ! this is from Riddles- 
den. I have lately found him to be a complete rascal, 
and I will have nothing to do with him, nor receive any 
letters from him." So, putting the letter into my hand, 
he turned on his heel and left me to serve some cus- 
tomer. I was surprised to find these were not the 
governor's letters; and, after recollecting and com- 
paring circumstances, I began to doubt his sincerity. 
I found my friend Denham, and opened the whole affair 
to him. He let me into Keith's character; told me 
there was not the least probability that he had written 
any letters for me ; that no one, who knew him, had the 



29 

smallest dependence on him; and he laughed at the 
notion of the governor's giving me a letter of credit, 
having, as he said, no credit to give. On my express- 
ing some concern about what I should do, he advised 
me to endeavor getting some employment in the way of 
my business. 

I immediately got into work at Palmer's, then a 
famous printing-house, where I continued near a year. 
I now began to think of getting a little beforehand, 
and, expecting better work, I left Palmer's to work at 
Watts's, near Lincoln's Inn Fields, a still greater 
printing-house. Here I continued all the rest of my 
stay in London. 

At my first admission into this printing-house I took 
to working at press, imagining I felt a want of the 
bodily exercise I had been used to in America, where 
presswork is mixed with composing. I drank only 
water ; the other workmen, near fifty in number, were 
great drinkers of beer. On occasion, I carried up and 
down stairs a large form of types in each hand, when 
others carried but one in both hands. They wondered 
to see, from this and several instances, that the Water- 
America?i, as they called me, was stronger than them- 
selves, who drank stro?ig beer ! We had an alehouse 
boy who attended always in the house to supply the 
workmen. My companion at the press drank every day 
a pint before breakfast, a pint at breakfast with his 
bread and cheese, a pint between breakfast and dinner, 
a pint at dinner, a pint in the afternoon about six 
o'clock, and another when he had done his day's work. 



30 

I thought it a detestable custom ; but it was necessary, 
he supposed, to drink strong beer, that he might be 
strong to labor. I endeavored to convince him that the 
bodily strength afforded by beer could only be in pro- 
portion to the grain or flower of the barley dissolved in 
the water of which it was made ; that there was more 
flour in a pennyworth of bread ; and therefore, if he 
could eat that with a pint of water, it would give him 
more strength than a quart of beer. He drank on, 
however, and had four or five shillings to pay out of his 
wages every Saturday night for that vile liquor ; 
an expense I was free from. And thus these poor devils 
keep themselves always under. 

Watts, after some weeks, desiring to have me in the 
composing-room, I left the pressmen ; a new bien venu 
for drink, being five shillings, was demanded of 
me by the compositors. I thought it an imposition, as 
I had paid one to the pressmen ; the master thought so 
too, and forbade my paying it. I stood out two or three 
weeks, was accordingly considered as an excommunicate, 
and had so many little pieces of private malice practised 
on me, by mixing my sorts, transposing and breaking my 
matter, etc., etc., if I ever stepped out of the 
room, and all ascribed to the chapel ghost, which they 
said ever haunted those not regularly admitted, that, 
notwithstanding the master's protection, I found myself 
obliged to comply and pay the money, convinced of 
the folly of being on ill terms with those one is to live 
with continually. 



31 

I was now on a fair footing with them, and soon ac- 
quired considerable influence. I proposed some reason- 
able alterations in their laws, and carried them 
against all opposition. From my example, a great part 
of them left their muddling breakfast of beer, and 
bread, and cheese, finding they could, with me, be 
supplied from a neighboring house with a large por- 
ringer of hot water-gruelj sprinkled with pepper, 
crumbed with bread, and a bit of butter in it, for the 
price of a pint of beer, viz., three half- pence. This 
was a more comfortable as well as cheaper breakfast, and 
kept their heads clearer. Those who continued sotting 
with their beer all day were often, by not paying, out of 
credit at the alehouse, and used to make interest with 
me to get beer ; their light, as they phrased it, beivg out. 
I watched the pay-table on Saturday night, and collected 
what I stood engaged for them, having to pay sometimes 
near thirty shillings a week on their accounts. This, 
and my being esteemed a pretty good riggite, that is, a 
jocular, verbal satirist, supported my consequence in the 
society. My constant attendance recommended me to 
the master ; and my uncommon quickness at composing 
occasioned my being put upon all work of dispatch, 
which was generally better paid. So I went on now 
very agreeably. 

My lodging in Little Britain being too remote, I 
found another in Duke Street, opposite to the Romish 
chapel. It was three pair of stairs backwards, at an 
Italian warehouse. A widow lady kept the house ; she 
had a daughter, and a maid servant, and a journeyman 



who attended the warehouse, but lodged abroad. After 
sending to inquire my character at the house where I 
last lodged, she agreed to take me in at the same rate, 
three shillings and sixpence per week ; cheaper, as she 
said, from the protection she expected in having 
a man lodge in the house. She was a widow, an 
elderly woman ; had been bred a Protestant, being 
a clergyman's daughter, but was converted to the 
Catholic religion by her husband, whose memory 
she much revered ; had lived much among people 
of distinction, and knew a thousand anecdotes of them 
as far back as the times of Charles the Second. She 
was lame in her knees with the gout, and, therefore, 
seldom stirred out of her room, so sometimes wanted 
company ; and hers was so highly amusing to me, that 
I was sure to spend an evening with her whenever she 
desired it. Our supper was only half an anchovy each, 
on a very little slice of bread and butter, and half a pint 
of ale between us; but the entertainment was in her 
conversation. My always keeping good hours, and 
giving little trouble in the family, made her unwilling 
to part with me ; so that, when I talked of a lodging I 
had heard of, nearer my business, for two shillings a 
week, which, intent as I was on saving money, 
made some difference, she bid me not think of it, for 
she would abate me two shillings a week for the future ; 
so I remained with her at one shilling and sixpence as 
long as I stayed in London. 

In a garret of her house there lived a maiden lady of 
seventy, in the most retired manner, of whom my land- 



33 

lady gave me this account: that she was a Roman 
Catholic, had been sent abroad when young, and lodged 
in a nunnery with an intent of becoming a nun ; but, 
the country not agreeing with her, she returned to 
England, where, there being no nunnery, she had vowed 
to lead the life of a nun, as near as might be done in 
those circumstances. Accordingly, she had given all 
her estate to charitable purposes, reserving only twelve 
pounds a year to live on, and out of this sum she still 
gave a part in charity, living herself on water-gruel 
only, and using no fire but to boil it. She had 
lived many years in that garret, being permitted to 
remam there gratis by successive Catholic tenants of the 
house below, as they deemed it a blessing to have her 
there. A priest visited her to confess her every day. 
^'I asked her," says my landlady, *'how she, as 
she lived, could possibly find so much employment for a 
confessor?" "Oh," said she, 'Mt is impossible to 
avoid vain thoughts^ I was permitted once to visit her. 
She was cheerful and polite, and conversed pleasantly. 
The room was clean, but had no other furniture than a 
mattress, a table with a crucifix and book, a stool which 
she gave me to sit on, and a picture over the chimney, 
of Saint Veronica displaying her handkerchief, with the 
miraculous figure of Christ's bleeding face on it, which 
she explained to me with great seriousness. She looked 
pale, but was never sick ; and I give it as another 
instance on how small an income life and health may be 
supported. 



34 

At Watt's printing-house I contracted an acquaintance 
with an ingenious young man, one Wygate, who, having 
wealthy relations, had been better educated than most 
printers; was a tolerable Latinist, spoke French, and 
loved reading. He proposed to me travelling all over 
Europe together, supporting ourselves everywhere by 
working at our business. I was once inclined to it ; 
but, mentioning it to my good friend Mr. Denham, 
with whom I often spent an hour when I had leisure, he 
dissuaded me from it, advising me to think only of 
returning to Pennsylvania, which he was now about 
to do. 

He told me he was about to return to Philadelphia, 
and should carry over a great quantity of goods in order 
to open a store there. He proposed to take me over as 
his clerk, to keep his books, in which he would instruct 
me, copy his letters, and attend the store. He added 
that, as soon as I should be acquainted with mercantile 
business, he would promote me by sending me with a 
cargo of flour and bread to the West Indies, and 
procure me commissions from others which would be 
profitable ; and if I managed well, would establish me 
handsomely. The thing pleased me ; for I was grown 
tired of London, remembered with pleasure the happy 
months I had spent in Pennsylvania, and wished again 
to see it ; therefore I immediately agreed on the terms 
of fifty pounds a year, Pennsylvania money ; less, 
indeed, than my then present gettings as a compositor, 
but affording a better prospect. 



35 

I now took leave of printing, as I thought, forever, 
and was daily employed in my new business, going 
about with Mr. Denham among the tradesmen to 
purchase various articles, and see them packed up, 
delivering messages, calling upon workmen to dis- 
patch, etc. 

Thus I spent about eighteen months in London. I 
had by no means improved my fortune ; but I had 
made some very ingenious acquaintances, whose con- 
versation was of great advantage to me ; and I had 
read considerably. We sailed from Gravesend on the 
23d of July, 1726. 

We landed in Philadelphia on the nth of October, 
where I found sundry alterations. Keith was no longer 
governor, being superseded by Major Gordon. I met 
him walking the streets as a common citizen. He 
seemed a little ashamed at seeing me, and passed without 
saying anything. Miss Read had married one Rogers, 
a potter, which was done in my absence. With him, 
however, she was never happy, and soon parted from 
him, refusing to cohabit with him or bear his name, it 
now being said that he had another wife. He was a 
worthless fellow, though an excellent workman, which 
was the temptation to her friends. He got into debt, 
ran away in 1727 or 1728, went to the West Indies, and 
died there. Keimer had got a better house, a shop well 
supplied with stationery, plenty of new types, a number 
of hands, though none good, and seemed to have a 
great deal of business. 



36 

Mr. Denham took a store in Water Street, where we 
opened our goods ; I attended the business diligently, 
studied accounts, and grew, in a little time, expert at 
selling. We lodged and boarded together ; he coun- 
selled me as a father, having a sincere regard for me. I 
respected and loved him, and we might have gone on 
together very happily ; but in the beginning of February, 
1727, when I had just passed my twenty-first year, we 
both were taken ill. My distemper was a pleurisy, 
which very nearly carried me off. I suffered a good 
deal, gave up the point in my own mind, and was at the 
time rather disappointed when I found myself recovering, 
regretting, in some degree, that I must now, some time 
or other, have all that disagreeable work to do over 
again. I forget what Mr. Denham's distemper was; it 
held him a long time, and at length carried him off. 
He left me a small legacy in a nuncupative will as a 
token of his kindness for me, and he left me once more 
to the wide world ; for the store was taken into the 
care of his executors, and my employment under him 
ended. 

My brother-in-law, Holmes, being now at Philadel- 
phia, advised my return to my business ; and Keimer 
tempted me, with an offer of large wages by the year, 
to come and take the management of his printing-house, 
that he might better attend to his stationer's shop. I had 
heard a bad character of him in London from his wife 
and her friends, and was not for having any more 
to do with him. I wished for employment as a 
merchant's clerk; but not meeting with any, I closed 



37 

again with Keimer. I found in his house these 
hands : Hugh Meredith, a Welsh Pennsylvanian, thirty 
years of age, bred to country work; he was honest, 
sensible, but given to drink. Stephen Potts, a young 
countryman of full age, bred to the same, of uncommon 
natural parts, and great wit and humor, but a little idle. 
These he had agreed with at extreme low wages per 
week, to be raised a shilling every three months, as they 
would deserve by improving in their business ; and the 
expectation of these high wages, to come on hereafter, 
was what he had drawn them in with. Meredith was to 
work at press. Potts at bookbinding, which he, by agree- 
ment, was to teach them, though he knew neither one 

nor the other. John , a wild Irishman, brought 

up to no business, whose service, for four years, Keimer 
had purchased from the captain of a ship ; he, too, was 
to be made a pressman. George Webb, an Oxford 
scholar, whose time for four years he had likewise 
bought, intending him for a compositor, of whom more 
presently ; and David Harry, a country boy, whom he 
had taken apprentice. 

I soon perceived that the intention of engaging me 
at wages so much higher than he had been used to give 
was to have these raw, cheap hands formed through me ; 
and as soon as I had instructed them, then being 
all articled to him, he should be able to do without me. 
I went on, however, very cheerfully, put his printing- 
house in order, which had been in great confusion, and 
brought his hands by degrees to mind their business and 
to do it better. 



38 

John, the Irishman, soon ran away ; with the rest I 
began to live very agreeably, for they all respected me 
the more, as they found Keimer incapable of instructing 
them, and that from me they learned something daily. 
My acquaintance with ingenious people in the town 
increased. We never worked on Saturday, that 
being Keimer' s Sabbath, so I had two days for reading. 
Keimer himself treated me with great civility and 
apparent regard, and nothing now made me uneasy but 
my debt to Vernon, which I was yet unable to pay, 
being hitherto but a poor economist. He, however, 
kindly made no demand of it. 

Our printing-house often wanted sorts, and there was 
no letter-foundery in America ; I had seen types cast at 
James's in London, but without much attention to the 
manner ; however, I now contrived a mould, and made 
use of the letters we had as puncheons, struck the matrices 
in lead, and thus supplied in a pretty tolerable way all 
deficiencies. I also engraved several things on occasion ; 
made the ink ; I was warehouseman, and, in short, 
quite a factotum. 

But, however serviceable I might be, I found that 
my services became every day of less importance, as the 
other hands improved in their business ; and when 
Keimer paid a second quarter's wages, he let me know 
that he felt them too heavy, and thought I should make 
an abatement. He grew by degrees less civil, put on 
more the airs of master, frequently found fault, was cap- 
tious, and seemed ready for an outbreaking. I went on, 
nevertheless, with a good deal of patience, thinking 



39 

that his incumbered circumstances were partly the cause. 
At length a trifle snapped our connections ; for, a great 
noise happening near the court-house, I put my head ont 
of the window to see what was the matter. Keimer, 
being in the street, looked up and saw me, called out to 
me in a loud voice and angry tone to mind my business, 
adding some reproachful words, that nettled me the 
more for their publicity, all the neighbors who were 
looking out on the same occasion being witnesses how I 
was treated. He came up immediately into the print- 
ing-house, continued the quarrel, high words passed on 
both sides, he gave me the quarter's warning we had 
stipulated, expressing a wish that he had not been 
obliged to so long a warning. I told him his wish was 
unnecessary, for I would leave him that instant ; and so, 
taking my hat, I walked out of doors, desiring Meredith, 
whom I saw below, to take care of some things I left, 
and bring them to my lodgings. 

Meredith came accordingly in the evening, when we 
talked my affair over. He had conceived a great regard 
for me, and was very unwilling that I should leave the 
house while he remained in it. He dissuaded me from 
returning to my native country, which I began to think 
of; he reminded me that Keimer was in debt for all he 
possessed ; that his creditors began to be uneasy ; that 
he kept his shop miserably, sold often without a profit for 
ready money, and often trusted without keeping 
accounts ; that he must therefore fail, which would make 
a vacancy I might profit of. I objected my want of 
money. He then let me know that his father had a 



40 

high opinion of me, and from some discourse that had 
passed between them, he was sure would advance money 
to set us up, if I would enter into partnership with him. 
''My time," says he, "will be out with Keimer in the 
spring; by that time we may have our press and types 
in from London. I am sensible I am no workman ; if 
you like it, your skill in the business shall be set against 
the stock I furnish, and we will share the profits 
equally." 

The proposal was agreeable to me, and I consented. 
His father was in town and approved of it ; the more as he 
said I had great influence with his son, had prevailed on 
him to abstain long from dram-drinking, and he hoped 
might break him of that wretched habit entirely, when 
we came to be so closely connected. I gave an 
inventory to the father who carried it to a merchant ; 
the things were sent for, the secret was to be kept till 
they should arrive, and in the meantime I was to get 
work, if I could, at the other printing-house. But I 
found no vacancy there, and so remained idle a few 
days, when Keimer, on a prospect of being employed 
to print some paper money in New Jersey, which would 
require cuts and various types that I only could supply, 
and apprehending Bradford might engage me and get 
the job from him, sent me a very civil message, that old 
friends should not part for a few words, the effect of 
sudden passion, and wishing me to return. Meredith 
persuaded me to comply, as it would give more oppor- 
tunity for his improvement under my daily instructions ; 
so I returned, and we went on more smoothly than for 



some time before. The New Jersey job was obtained, I 
contrived a copper-plate press for it, the first that had 
been seen in the country ; I cut several ornaments and 
checks for the bills. We went together to Burlington, 
where I executed the whole to satisfaction ; and he re- 
ceived so large a sum for the work as to be enabled 
thereby to keep himself longer from ruin. 

^-t Burlington I made acquaintance with many 
principal people of the province. Several of them had 
been appointed by the Assembly a committee to attend 
the press, and take care that no more bills were printed 
than the law directed. They were, therefore, by turns, 
constantly with us, and generally he who attended 
brought with him a friend or two for company. My 
rnind having been much more improved by reading than 
Keimer's, I suppose it was for that reason my conver- 
sation seemed to be more valued. They had me to 
their houses, introduced me to their friends, and showed 
me much civility ; while he, though the master, was a 
little neglected. In truth, he was an odd creature; 
ignorant of common life, fond of rudely opposing received 
opinions, slovenly to extreme dirtiness, enthusiastic in 
some points of religion, and a little knavish withal. 

We continued there near three months ; and by that 
time I could reckon among my acquired friends, Judge 
Allen, Samuel Bustill, the secretary of the province, 
Isaac Pearson, Joseph Cooper, and several of the Smiths, 
members of Assembly, and Isaac Decow, the surveyor- 
general. The latter was a shrewd, sagacious old man, 
who told me that he began for himself, when young, by 



42 

wheeling clay for the brickmakers, learned to write after 
he was of age, carried the chain for surveyors, who 
taught him surveying, and he had now by his industry 
acquired a good estate; and said he, "1 foresee that 
you will soon work this man out of his business, and 
make a fortune in it at Philadelphia." He had not 
then the least intimation of my intention to set up there 
or anywhere. These friends were afterwards of great 
use to me, as I occasionally w^as to some of them. They 
all continued their regard for me as long as they lived. 
We had not been long returned to Philadelphia before 
the new types arrived from London. We settled with 
Keimer, and left him by his consent before he heard of 
it. We found a house to let near the market, and took 
it. To lessen the rent, which was then but twenty-four 
pounds a year, though I have since known it to let for 
seventy, we took in Thomas Godfrey, a glazier, and his 
family, who were to pay a considerable part of it to us, 
and we to board with them. We had scarce opened our 
letters and put our press in order, before George House, 
an acquaintance of mine, brought a countryman to us, 
whom he had met in the street inquiring for a printer. 
All our cash was] now expended in the variety of par- 
ticulars we had been obliged to procure, and this 
countryman's five shillings, being our first-fruits, and 
coming so seasonably, gave me more pleasure than any 
crown I have since earned ; and the gratitude I felt 
toward House has made me often more ready than 
perhaps I otherwise should have been to assist young 
beginners. 



43 

There are croakers in every country, always boding its 
ruin. Such a one then lived in Philadelphia ; a person 
of note, an elderly man, with a wise look and a very 
grave manner of speaking ; his name was Samuel 
Mickle. This gentleman, a stranger to me, stopped me 
one day at my door, and asked me if I was the young 
man who had lately opened a new printing-house. 
Being answered in the affirmative, he said he was sorry 
for me, because it was an expensive undertaking, and 
the expense would be lost; for Philadelphia was a sink- 
ing place, the people already half bankrupts, or near 
being so ; all the appearances to the contrary, such as 
new buildings and the rise of rents, being to his certain 
knowledge fallacious ; for they were, in fact, among the 
things that would soon ruin us. And he gave me such 
a detail of misfortunes now existing, or that were soon 
to exist, that he left me half melancholy. Had I known 
him before I engaged in this business, probably I never 
should have done it. This person continued to live in 
this decaying place, and to declaim in the same strain, 
refusing for many years to buy a house there, because 
all was going to destruction ; and at last I had the 
pleasure of seeing him give five times as much for one 
as he might have bought it for when he first began 
croaking. 

I should nave mentioned before, that in the autumn 
of the preceding year, I had formed most of my in- 
genious acquaintance into a club for mutual improve- 
ment, which we called the Junto ; we met on Friday 
evenings. The rules that I drew up required that every 



44 

member, in his turn, should produce one or more 
queries on any point of Morals, Politics, or Natural 
Philosophy, to be discussed by the company ; and once 
in three months produce and read an essay of his own 
writing, on any subject he pleased. Our debates were 
to be under the direction of a president, and to be con- 
ducted in the sincere spirit of inquiry after truth, 
without fondness for dispute, or desire of victory ; and 
to prevent warmth, all expressions of positiveness in 
opinions, or direct contradiction, were after some time 
made contraband, and prohibited under small pecuniary 
penalties. 

The first members were Joseph Breintnal, a copier of 
deeds for the scriveners, a good-natured, friendly, 
middle-aged man, a great lover of poetry, reading all 
he could meet with, and writing some that was toler- 
able ; very ingenious in many little knicknackeries, and 
of sensible conversation. 

Thomas Godfrey, a self-taught mathematician, great 
in his way, and afterward inventor of what is now called 
Hadley's Quadrant. But he knew little out of his way, 
and was not a pleasing companion ; as, like most great 
mathematicians I have met with, he expected universal 
precision in everything said, or was forever denying or 
distinguishing upon trifles, to the disturbance of all con- 
versation. He soon left us. 

Nicholas Scull, a surveyor, afterward surveyor-general, 
who loved books, and sometimes made a few verses. 

William Parsons, bred a shoemaker, but, loving read- 
ing, had acquired a considerable share of mathematics, 



45 

which he first studied with a view to astrology, and 
afterwards laughed at it. He also became surveyor- 
general. 

William Maugridge, a joiner, a most exquisite 
mechanic, and a solid, sensible man. 

Hugh Meredith, Stephen Potts, and George Webb I 
have characterized before. 

Robert Grace, a young gentleman of some fortune, 
generous, lively, and witty ; a lover of punning and of 
his friends. 

And William Coleman, then a merchant's clerk, 
about my age, who had the coolest, clearest head, the 
best heart, and the exactest morals of almost any man I 
ever met with. He became afterwards a merchant of 
great note, and one of our provincial judges. Our 
friendship continued without interruption to his death, 
upward of forty years ; and the club continued almost 
as long, and was the best school of philosophy, morality, 
and politics that then existed in the province ; for our 
queries, which were read the week preceding their dis- 
cussion, put us upon reading with attention upon the 
several subjects, that we might speak more to the 
purpose ; and here, too, we acquired better habits of 
conversation, everything being studied in our rules 
which might prevent our disgusting each other. Hence 
the long continuance of the club, which I shall have 
frequent occasion to speak further of hereafter. 

But my giving this account of it here is to show some- 
thing of the interest I had, every one of these exerting 
themselves in recommending business to us. Breintnal 



46 

particularly procured us from the Quakers the printing 
of forty sheets of their history, the rest being to be 
done by Keimer; and upon these we worked exceed- 
ingly hard, for the price was low. It was a folio, pro 
patria size, in pica, with long primer notes. I com- 
posed a sheet a day, and Meredith worked it off at 
press ; it was often eleven at night, and sometimes later, 
before I had finished my distribution for the next day's 
work, for the little jobs sent in by our other friends now 
and then put us back. But so determined I was to con- 
tinue doing a sheet a day of the folio, that one night, 
when, having imposed my forms, I thought my day's 
work over, one of them by accident was broken, and 
two pages reduced to pi, I immediately distributed and 
composed it over again before I went to bed ; and this 
industry, visible to our neighbors, began to give us 
character and credit ; particularly, I was told, that 
mention being made of the new printing-office at the 
merchant's Every-night club, the general opinion was 
that it must fail, there being already two printers in the 
place, Keimer and Bradford; but Dr. Baird gave a 
contrary opinion : *' For the industry of that Franklin," 
says he, *' is superior to anything I ever saw of the kind ; 
I see him still at work when I go home from club, and 
he is at work again before his neighbors are out of bed." 
This struck the rest, and we soon after had off'ers from 
one of them to supply us with stationery ; but as yet we 
did not choose to engage in shop business. 

I mention this industry more particularly and the 
more freely, though it seems to be talking in my own 



47 

praise, that those of my posterity who shall read it may 
know the use of that virtue, when they see its effects in 
my favor throughout this relation. 

George Webb, who had found a female friend that 
lent him wherewith to purchase his time of Keimer, now 
came to offer himself as a journeyman to us. We could 
not then employ him ; but I foolishly let him know as a 
secret that I soon intended to begin a newspaper, and 
might then have work for him. My hopes of success, 
as I told him, were founded on this, that the then only 
newspaper, printed by Bradford, was a paltry thing, 
wretchedly managed, no way entertaining, and yet was 
profitable to him ; I therefore freely thought a good 
paper would scarcely fail of good encouragement. I 
requested Webb not to mention it ; but he told it to 
Keimer, who immediately, to be beforehand with me, 
published proposals for one himself, on which Webb was 
to be employed. I was vexed at this ; and to counteract 
them, not being able to commence our paper, I wrote 
several amusing pieces for Bradford's paper, under the 
title of the Busy Body, which Breintnal continued 
some months. By this means the attention of the public 
was fixed on that paper, and Keimer' s proposals, which 
we burlesqued and ridiculed, were disregarded. He 
began his paper, however, and, after carrying it on three 
quarters of a year, with at most only ninety subscribers, 
he offered it to me for a trifle ; and I, having been ready 
some time to go on with it, took it in hand directly; 
and it proved in a few years extremely profitable to me. 



48 

I perceive that I am apt to speak in the singular 
number, though our partnership still continued ; the 
reason may be that, in fact, the whole management of 
the business lay upon me. Meredith was no com- 
positor, a poor pressman, and seldom sober. My friends 
lamented my connection with him, but I was to make 
the best of it. 

Our first papers made quite d different appearance 
from any before in the province; a better type, and 
better printed ; and some remarks of my writing, on the 
dispute then going on between Governor Burnet and the 
Massachusetts Assembly, struck the principal people, 
occasioned the paper and the manager of it to be much 
talked of, and in a few weeks brought them all to be our 
subscribers. 

Their example was followed by many, and our number 
went on growing continually. This was one of the 
first good effects of my having learned a little to 
scribble; another was, that the leading men, seeing a 
newspaper now in the hands of those who could also 
handle a pen, thought it convenient to oblige and en- 
courage me. Bradford still printed the votes, and laws, 
and other public business. He had printed an address 
of the House to the governor in a coarse, blundering 
manner; we reprinted it elegantly and correctly, and 
sent one to every member. They were sensible of the 
difference : it strengthened ihe hands of our friends in 
the House, and they voted us their printers for the year 
ensuing. 



49 

Among my friends in the House I must not forget 
Mr. Hamilton, before mentioned, who was then returned 
from England, and had a seat in it. He interested him- 
self for me strongly in that instance, as he did in many 
others afterward, continuing his patronage till his death. 

Mr. Vernon, about this time, put me in mind of the 
debt I owed him, but did not press me. I wrote him an 
ingenuous letter of acknowledgment, craving his for- 
bearance a little longer, which he allowed me. As soon 
as I was able, I paiu the principal with interest, and 
many thanks; so that erratum was in some degree 
corrected. 

But now another difficulty came upon me which I had 
never the least reason to expect. Mr. Meredith's 
father, who was to have paid for our printing-house, 
according to the expectations given me, was able to 
advance only one hundred pounds currency, which had 
been paid ; and a hundred more was due to the 
merchant, who grew impatient, and sued us all. We 
gave bail, but saw that, if the money could not be 
raised in time, the suit must soon come to a judgment 
and execution, and our hopeful prospects must, with us, 
be ruined, as the press and letters must be sold for pay- 
ment, perhaps at half price. 

In this distress two true friends, whose kindress I 
have never forgotten, nor ever shall forget while I can 
remember anything, came to me separately, unknown to 
each other, and, without any application from me, 
offered each of them to advance me all the money that 
should be necessary to enable me to take the whole busi- 



5° 

ness upon myself, if that should be practicable ; but 
they did not like my continuing the j^artnership with 
Meredith, who, as they said, was often seen drunk in 
the street, and playing at low games in ale-houses, much 
to our discredit. These two friends were William 
Coleman and Robert Grace. I told them I could not 
propose a separation while any prospect remained of 
the Merediths' fulfilling their part of our agreement, 
because I thought myself under great obligations to 
them for what they had done, and would do if they 
could ; but, if they finally failed in their performance, 
and our partnership must be dissolved, I should then 
think myself at liberty to accept the assistance of my 
friends. 

Thus the matter rested for some time, when I said to 
my partner, '^ Perhaps your father is dissatisfied at the 
part you have undertaken in this affair of ours, and is 
unwilling to advance for you and me what he would for 
you. If that is the case, tell me, and I will resign the 
whole to you, and go about my business." "No," 
said he, "my father has really been disappointed, and 
is really unable; and I am unwilling to distress him 
further. I see this is a business I am not fit for. I was 
bred a farmer, and it was a folly in me to come to town, 
and put myself, at thirty years of age, an apprentice to 
learn a new trade. Many of our Welsh people are 
going to settle in North Carolina, where land is cheap. 
I am inclined to go with them, and follow my old em- 
ployment. You may find friends to assist you. If you 
will take the debts of the company upon you, return to 



51 

my father the hundred pounds he has advanced, pay my 
little personal debts, and give me thirty pounds and a 
new saddle, I will relinquish the partnership, and leave 
the whole in your hands. ' ' I agreed to this proposal ; 
it was drawn up in writing, signed, and sealed imme- 
diately. I gave him what he demanded, and he went 
soon after to Carolina, whence he sent me next year two 
long letters, containing the best account that had been 
given of that country, the climate, the soil and 
husbandry, for in those matters he was very judicious. 
I printed them in the papers, and they gave great satis- 
faction to the public. 

As soon as he was gone, I recurred to my two friends ; 
and because I would not give an unkind preference to 
either, I took half of what each had offered and I 
wanted of one, and half of the other ; paid off the 
company's debts, and went on with the business in my 
own name, advertising that the partnership was dis- 
solved. I think this was in or about the year 1729. 

About this time there was a cry among the people for 
more paper money, only fifteen thousand pounds being 
extant in the province, and that soon to be sunk. The 
wealthy inhabitants opposed any addition, being against 
all paper currency, from an apprehension that it would 
depreciate, as it had done in New England, to the 
injury of all creditors. We had discussed this point in 
our Junto, where I was on the side of an addition, being 
persuaded that the first small sum struck in 1723 had 
done much good by increasing the trade, employment, 
and number of inhabitants in the province, since I now 



52 

saw all the old houses inhabited, and many new ones 
building ; whereas I remembered well that when I first 
walked about the streets of Philadelphia, eating my roll, 
I saw most of the houses in Walnut Street, between 
Second and Front streets, with bills on their doors, 
'•To be let;" and many likewise in Chestnut Street 
and other streets, which made me think the inhabitants 
of the city were deserting it one after another. 

Our debates possessed me so fully of the subject that 
I wrote and printed an anonymous pamphlet on it, en- 
titled ^^The Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency.'" 
It was well received by the common people in general ; 
but the rich men disliked it, for it increased and 
strengthened the clamor for more money, but they 
happening to have no writers among them that were 
able to answer it, their opposition slackened, and the 
point was carried by a majority in the House. My 
friends there, who conceived I had been of some service, 
thought fit to reward me by employing me in printing 
the money ; a very profitable job and a great help to 
me. This was another advantage gained by my being 
able to write. 

The utility of this currency became by time and ex- 
perience so evident that the principles upon which it 
was founded were never afterwards much disputed ; so 
that it grew soon to fifty-five thousand pounds, and 
in 1739 to eighty thousand pounds, trade, building, 
and inhabitants all the while increasing, though I now 
think there are limits beyond which the quantity may 
be hurtful. 



53 

I soon after obtained, through my friend Hamilton, 
the printing of the Newcastle paper money, another 
profitable job as I then thought it ; small things appear- 
ing great to those in small circumstances ; and these, to 
me, were really great advantages, as they were great en- 
couragements. Mr. Hamilton procured for me, also, 
the printing of the laws and votes of that government, 
which continued in my hands as long as I followed the 
business. 

I now opened a little stationer's shop. I had in it 
blanks of all sorts, the correctest that ever appeared 
among us, being assisted in that by my friend Breintnal. 
I had also paper, parchment, chapmen's books, etc. 
One Whitemash, a compositor I had known in London, 
an excellent workman, now came to me, and worked 
with me constantly and diligently; and I took an 
apprentice, the son of Aquila Rose. 

I began now gradually to pay off the debt I was under 
for the printmg-house. In order to secure my credit 
and character as a tradesman, I took care not only to be 
in reality industrious and frugal, but to avoid all appear- 
ances to the contrary. I dressed plain ; I was seen at 
no places of idle diversion. I never went out a fishing 
or shooting ; a book, indeed, sometimes debauched me 
from my work, but that was seldom, was private and 
gave no scandal ; and, to show that I was not above my 
business, I sometimes brought home the paper I pur- 
chased at the stores through the streets on a wheel- 
barrow. Thus being esteemed an industrious, thriving 
young man, and paying duly for what I bought, the 



54 

merchants who imported stationery solicited my custom ; 
others proposed supplying me with books, and I v/ent 
on prosperously. In the meantime, Keimer's credit and 
business declining daily, he was at last forced to sell his 
printing-house to satisfy his, creditors. 

A friendly correspondence as neighbors had continued 
between me and Mrs. Read's family, who all had a 
regard for me from the time of my first lodging in their 
house. I was often invited there and consulted in their 
affairs, wherein I sometimes was of service. I pitied 
poor Miss Read's unfortunate situation, who was gen- 
erally dejected, seldom cheerful, and avoided company. 
Our mutual affection was revived, but there were now 
great objections to our union. That match* was 
indeed looked upon as invalid, a preceding wife being 
said to be living in England ; but this could not easily 
be proved, because of the distance, etc. ; and though 
there was a report of his death, it was not certain. 
Then, though it should be true, he had left many debts, 
which his successor might be called upon to pay. We 
ventured, however, over all these difficulties, and I took 
her to wife, September i, 1730. None of the incon- 
veniences happened that we had apprehended ; she 
proved a good and faithful helpmate, assisted me much 
by attending to the shop ; we throve together, and ever 
mutually endeavored to make each other happy. 

About this time, our club meeting, not at a tavern, 
but in a little room of Mr. Grace's, set apart for that 



*That is, the match between Miss Read and Rogers. 



55 

purpose, a proposition was made by me that, since our 
books were often referred to in our disquisitions upon 
the queries, it might be convenient to us to have them 
all together where we met, that upon occasion they 
might be consulted ; and by thus clubbing our books to 
a common library, we should, while we liked to keep 
them together, have each of us the advantage of using 
the books of all the other members, which would be 
nearly as beneficial as if each owned the whole. It was 
liked and agreed to, and we filled one end of the room 
with such books as we could best spare. The number 
was not so great as we expected ; and though they had 
been of great use, yet some inconveniences occurring 
for want of due care of them, the collection, after about 
a year, was separated, and each took his books home 
again. 

And now I set on foot my first project of a public 
nature, that for a subscription library. I drew up the 
proposals, got them put into form by our great scrivener, 
Brockden, and by the help of my friends in the Junto, 
procured fifty subscribers of forty shillings each to begin 
with, and ten shillings a year for fifty years, the term 
our company was to continue. We afterwards obtained 
a charter, the company being increased to one hundred ; 
this was the mother of all the North American sub- 
scription libraries, now so numerous. It is become a 
great thing itself, and continually increasing. These 
libraries have improved the general conversation of the 
Americans, made the common tradesmen and farmers as 
intelligent as most gentlemen from other countries, and 



56 

perhaps have contributed in some degree to the stand 
so generally made throughout the colonies in defence of 
their privileges. 

The objections and reluctances I met with in solicit- 
ing subscriptions made me soon feel the impropriety of 
presenting one's self as the proposer of any useful 
project, that might be supposed to raise one's reputation 
in the smallest degree above that of one's neighbors, 
when one has need of their assistance to accomplish 
that project. I therefore put myself as much as I could 
out of sight, and stated it as a scheme of a 7tu?nber of 
friends y who had requested me to go about and propose 
it to such as they thought lovers of reading. In this 
way my affair went on more smoothly, and I ever after 
practised it on such occasions ; and from my frequent 
successes can heartily recommend it. The present little 
sacrifice of your vanity will afterwards be amply repaid. 
If it remains a while uncertain to whom the merit 
belongs, some one more vain than yourself will be en- 
couraged to claim it, and then even envy will be dis- 
posed to do you justice by plucking those assumed 
feathers, and restoring them to their right owner. 

This library afforded me the means of improvement 
by constant study, for which I set apart an hour or two 
each day, and thus repaired in some degree the loss of 
the learned education my father once intended for me. 
Reading was the only amusement I allowed myself. I 
spent no time in taverns, games, or frolics of any kind ; 
and my industry in my business continued as in- 
defatigable as it was necessary. I was indebted for my 



57 

printing-house ; I had a young family coming on to be 
educated, and I had two compositors to contend with 
for business, who were established in the place before 
me. My circumstances, however, grew daily easier. 
My original habits of frugality continuing, and my 
father having, among his instructions to me when a boy, 
frequently repeated a proverb of Solomon, " Seest thou 
a man diligent in his calling, he shall stand before kings , 
he shall not stand before mean men,^^ I from thence con- 
sidered industry as a means of obtaining wealth and 
distinction, which encouraged me, though I did not 
think that I should ever literally sta7id before kings, 
which, however, has since happened ; for I have stood 
before Uve, and even had the honor of sitting down 
with one, the King of Denmark, to dinner. 

We have an English proverb that says, '^He that 
would thrive, must ask his wife. " It was lucky for me 
that I had one as much disposed to industry and frugality 
as myself. She assisted me cheerfully in my business, 
folding and stitching pamphlets, tending shop, pur- 
chasing old linen rags for the paper makers, etc. We 
kept no idle servants, our table was plain and simple, 
our furniture of the cheapest. For instance, my break- 
fast was a long time bread and milk (no tea), and I ate 
it out of a twopenny earthen porringer, with a pewter 
spoon. But mark how luxury will enter families, and 
make a progress, in spite of principle : being called one 
morning to breakfast, I found it in a China bowl, with a 
spoon of silver ! They had been bought for me without 
my knowledge by my w^ife, and had cost her the 



58 

enormous sum of three-and-twenty shillings, for which 
she had no other excuse or apology to make, but that 
she thought her husband deserved a silver spoon and 
China bowl as well as any of his neighbors. This was 
the first appearance of plate and China in our house, 
which afterward, in a course of years, as our wealth in- 
creased, augmented gradually to several hundred pounds 
in value. 

It was about this time I conceived the bold and 
arduous project of arriving at moral perfection. I 
wished to live without committing any fault at any time, 
and conquer all that either natural inclination, custom, 
or company might lead me into. As I knew, or thought 
I knew, what was right and wrong, I did not see why I 
might not always do the one and avoid the other. But 
I soon found I had undertaken a task of more difficulty 
than I had imagined. While my attention was taken up 
in guarding against one fault, I was often surprised by 
another ; habit took the advantage of inattention ; 
inclination was sometimes too strong for reason. I con- 
cluded, at length, that the mere speculative conviction 
that it was our interest to be completely virtuous was not 
sufficient to prevent our slipping ; and that the contrary 
habits must be broken, and good ones acquired and 
established, before we can have any dependence on a 
steady, uniform rectitude of conduct. For this purpose 
I therefore contrived the following method. 

In the various enumerations of the moral virtues I 
had met with in my reading, I found the catalogue more 
or less numerous, as different writers included more or 



59 

fewer ideas under the same name. Temperance, for 
example, was by some confined to eating and drinking, 
while by others it was extended to mean the moderating 
every other pleasure, appetite, inclination, or passion, 
bodily or mental, even to our avarice and ambition. I 
proposed to myself, for the sake of clearness, to use 
rather more names, with fewer ideas annexed to each, 
than a few names with more ideas ; and I included 
under thirteen names of virtues all that at that time 
occurred to me as necessary or desirable, and annexed 
to each a short precept, which fully expressed the extent 
I gave to Its meaning. 

These names of virtues, with their precepts were : — 

I. — Temperance. Eat not to dullness; drink not 
to elevation. 

2. — Silence. Speak not but what may benefit others 
or yourself; avoid trifling conversation. 

3. — Order. Let all your things have their places; 
let each part of your business have its time. 

4. — Resolution. Resolve to perform what you 
ought ; perform without fail what you resolve. 

5. — Frugality. Make no expense but to do good 
to others or yourself; that is, waste nothing. 

6. — Industry. Lose no time; be always employed 
in something useful ; cut off all unnecessary actions. 

7. — Sincerity. Use no hurtful deceit ; think inno- 
cently and justly ; and, if you speak, speak accordingly. 

8. — Justice. Wrong none by doing injuries, or 
omitting the benefits that are your duty. 



6o 

9. — Moderation. Avoid extremes; forbear resent- 
ing injuries so much as you think they deserve. 

10. — Cleanliness. Tolerate no uncleanliness in 
body, clothes, or habitation. 

II. — Tranquillity. Be not disturbed at trifles, or 
at accidents common or unavoidable. 

12. — Chastity. 

13. — Humility. Imitate Jesus and Socrates. 

My intention being to acquire the habitude of all 
these virtues, I judged it would be well not to distract 
my attention by attempting the whole at once, but to 
fix it on one of them at a time ; and, when I should be 
master of that, then to proceed to another, and so on, 
till I should have gone through the thirteen ; and as the 
previous acquisition of some might facilitate the acqui- 
sition of certain others, I arranged them with that view, 
as they stand above. 

I made a little book, in which I allotted a page for 
each of the virtues. I ruled each page with red ink, 
so as to have seven columns, one for each day of the 
week, marking each column with a letter for the day. 
I crossed these columns with thirteen red lines, marking 
the beginning of each line with the first letter of one of 
the virtues, on which line, and in its proper column, I 
might mark, by a little black spot, every fault I found 
upon examination to have been committed respecting 
that virtue upon that day. 

I entered upon the execution of this plan for self- 
examination, and continued it with occasional inter- 
missions for some time. I was surprised to find myself 



6i 

so much fuller of faults than I had imagined ; but I had 
the satisfaction of seeing them diminish. Something, 
however, that pretended to be reason, was every now 
and then suggesting to me that such extreme nicety as I 
exacted of myself might be a kind of foppery in morals, 
which, if it were known, would make me ridiculous ; 
that a perfect character might be attended with the 
inconvenience of being envied and hated ; and that a 
benevolent man should allow a few faults in himself, to 
keep his friends in countenance. 

In truth, I found myself incorrigible with respect to 
Order ; and now I am grown old, and my memory bad, 
I feel very sensibly the want of it. But, on the whole, 
though I never arrived at the perfection I had been so 
ambitious of obtaining, but fell far short of it, yet I was, 
by the endeavor, a better and a happier man than I 
otherwise should have been if I had not attempted it ; 
as those who aim at perfect writing by imitating the en- 
graved copies, though they never reach the wished -for 
excellence of those copies, their hand is mended by the 
endeavor, and is tolerable while it continues fair and 
legible. 

It may be well my posterity should be informed that 
to this little artifice, with the blessing of God, their 
ancestor owed the constant felicity of his life, down to 
his seventy-ninth year, in which this is written. What 
reverses may attend the remainder is in the hand of 
Providence; but, if they arrive, the reflection on past 
happiness enjoyed ought to help his bearing them with 
more resignation. To Temperance he ascribes his long- 



62 

continued health, and what is stili left to him of a good 
constitution ; to Industry and Frugality, the early easi- 
ness of his circumstances and acquisition of his fortune, 
with all that knowledge that enabled him to be a useful 
citizen, and obtained for him some degree of reputation 
among the learned ; to Sincerity and Justice, the con- 
fidence of his country, and the honorable employs it 
conferred upon him ; and to the joint influence of the 
whole mass of the virtues, even in the imperfect state 
he was able to acquire them, all that evenness of temper, 
and that cheerfulness in conversation, which makes his 
company still sought for, and agreeable even to his 
young acquaintance. I hope, therefore, that some of 
my descendants may follow the example and reap the 
benefit. 

My list of virtues contained at first but twelve ; but 
a Quaker friend having kindly informed me that I was 
generally thought proud ; that my pride showed itself 
frequently in conversation ; that I was not content with 
being in the right when discussing any point, but was 
overbearing, and rather insolent, of which he con- 
vinced me by mentioning several instances; I deter- 
mined endeavoring to cure myself, if I could, of this 
vice or folly among the rest, and I added Humility to 
my list, giving an extensive meaning to the word. 

I cannot boast of much success in acquiring the 
reality of this virtue, but I had a good deal with regard 
to the appearance of it. I made it a rule to forbear all 
direct contradiction to the sentiments of others, and all 
positive assertion of my own. I even forbid myself, 



63 

agreeably to the old laws of our Junto, the use of every 
word or expression in the language that imported a fixed 
opinion, such as certainly, undoubtedly, etc., and I 
adopted, instead of them, / conceive, I apprehe?id, or / 
imagine a thing to be so or so ; or it so appears to me at 
present. When another asserted something that I 
thought an error, I denied myself the pleasure of contra- 
dicting him abruptly, and of showing immediately some 
absurdity in his proposition ; and in answering I began 
by observing that in certain cases or circumstances his 
opinion would be right, but in the present case there 
appeared or seemed to me some difference, etc. I soon 
found the advantage of this change in my manner ; the 
conversations I engaged in went on more pleasantly. 
The modest way in which I proposed my opinions pro- 
cured them a readier reception and less contradiction ; 
I had less mortification when I was found to be in the 
wrong, and I more easily prevailed with others to give 
up their mistakes and join with me when I happened to 
be in the right. 

And this mode, which I at first put on with some 
violence to natural inclination, became at length so 
easy, and so habitual to me, that perhaps for the last 
fifty years no one has ever heard a dogmatical expression 
escape me. And to this habit (after my character of 
integrity) I think it principally owing that I had early 
so much weight with my fellow-citizens when I proposed 
new institutions, or alterations in the old, and so much 
influence in public councils when I became a member ; 
for I was but a bad speaker, never eloquent, subject to 



64 

much hesitation in my choice of words, hardly correct 
in language, and yet I generally carried my points. 

In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our natural 
passions so hard to subdue 2& pride. Disguise it, struggle 
with it, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is 
still alive, and will every now and then peep out and 
show itself; you will see it, perhaps, often in this 
history ; for, even if I could conceive that I had com- 
pletely overcome it, I should probably be proud of my 
humility. 

Having mentioned a great and extensive project which 
I had conceived, it seems proper that some account 
should be here given of that project and its object. Its 
first rise in my mind appears in the following little 
paper, accidentally preserved, viz. : — 

Observatio?is on my reading history, in Library, 
May 19th, 1 73 1. 

*'That the great affairs of the world, the wars, revo- 
lutions, etc., are carried on and effected by parties. 

^'That the view of these parties is their present gen- 
eral interest, or what they take to be such. 

'^That the different views of these different parties 
occasion all confusion. 

*' That while a party is carrying on a general design, 
each man has his particular private interest in view. 

"■ That as soon as a party has gained its general point, 
each member becomes intent upon his particular inter- 
est ; which, thwarting others, breaks that party into 
divisions, and occasions more confusion. 



65 

" That few in public affairs act from a mere view of 
the good of their country, whatever they may pretend ; 
and, though their actings bring real good to their 
country, yet men primarily considered that their own 
and their country's interest were united, and did not act 
from a principle of benevolence. 

''That fewer still, in public affairs, act with a view to 
the good of mankind. 

"There seems to me at present to be great occasion 
for raising a United Party for Virtue, by forming the 
virtuous and good men of all nations into a regular 
body, to be governed by suitable, good, and wise rules, 
which good and wise men may probably be more unan- 
imous in their obedience to, than common people are 
to common laws. 

" I at present think that whoever attempts this aright, 
and is well qualified, cannot fail of pleasing God, and 
of meeting with success." 

Revolving this project in my mind, as to be under- 
taken hereafter, when my circumstances should afford 
me the necessary leisure, I put down from time to time, 
on pieces of paper, such thoughts as» occurred to me 
respecting it. Most of these are lost ; but I find one 
purporting to be the substance of an intended creed, 
containing, as I thought, the essentials of every known 
religion, and being free of everything that might shock 
the professors of any religion. It is expressed in these 
words, viz. : — 

" That there is one God, who made all things. 

" That He governs the world by his providence. 



66 

''That He ought to be worshipped by adoration, 
prayer, and thanksgiving. 

''But that the most acceptable service of God is 
doing good to man. 

"That the soul is immortal. 

" And that God will certainly reward virtue and 
punish vice, either here or hereafter." 

My ideas at that time were that the sect should be 
begun and spread at first among young and single men 
only ; that each person to be initiated should not only 
declare his assent to such creed, but should have exer- 
cised himself with the thirteen weeks' examination and 
practice of the virtues, as in the before-mentioned 
model ; that the existence of such a society should be 
kept a secret, till it was become considerable, to prevent 
solicitations for the admission of improper persons, but 
that the members should each of them search among his 
acquaintance for ingenuous, well-disposed youths, to 
w^hom, with prudent caution, the scheme should be 
gradually communicated ; that the members should en- 
gage to afford their advice, assistance, and support to 
each other in promoting one another's interests, busi- 
ness, and advancement in life ; that, for distinction, we 
should be called The Society of the Free and Easy : 
free, as being, by the general practice and habit of the 
virtues, free from the dominion of vice ; and particularly 
by the practice of industry and frugality, free from 
debt, which exposes a man to confinement, and a 
species of slavery to his creditors. 



67 

This is as much as I can now recollect of the project, 
except that I communicated it in part to two young 
men, who adopted it with some enthusiasm; but my 
then narrow circumstances, and the necessity I was 
under of sticking close to my business, occasioned my 
postponing the further prosecution of it at that time ; 
and my multifarious oocupations, public and private, 
induced me to continue postponing, so that it has been 
omitted till I have no longer strength or activity left 
sufficient for sucli an enterprise ; though I am still of 
opinion that it was a practicable scheme, and might have 
been very useful, by forming a great number of good 
citizens; and I was not discouraged by the seeming 
magnitude of the undertaking, as I have always thought 
that one man of tolerable abilities may work great 
changes, and accomplish great affairs among mankind, 
if he first forms a good plan, and, cutting off all amuse- 
ments or other employments that would divert his 
attention, makes the execution of that same plan his 
sole study and business. 

In 1732 I first published my Almanack, under the 
name of Richard Saunders ; it was continued by me 
about twenty-five years, commonly called Poor Richard'' s 
Almanac. I endeavored to make it both entertaining 
and useful ; and it accordingly came to be in such 
demand, that I reaped considerable profit from it, vend- 
ing annually near ten thousand. And observing that it 
was generally read, scarce any neighborhood in the 
province being without it, I considered it as a proper 
vehicle for conveying instruction among the common 



6S 

people, who bought scarcely any other books; I there- 
fore filled all the little spaces that occurred between the 
remarkable days in the calendar with proverbial sen- 
tences, chiefly such as inculcated industry and frugality 
as the means of procuring wealth, and thereby securing 
virtue; it being more difficult for a man in want to act 
always honestly, as, to use here one of those proverbs, 
// is hard for an empty sack to sta?id upright. 

These proverbs, which contained the wisdom of many 
ages and nations, I assembled and formed into a con- 
nected discourse prefixed to the Almanack of 1757, as 
the harangue of a wise old man to the people attending 
an auction. The bringing all these scattered counsels 
thus into a focus enabled them to make greater im- 
pression. The piece, being universally approved, was 
copied in all the newspapers of the Continent ; re- 
printed in Britain on a large sheet of paper to be stuck 
up in houses; two translations were made of it in 
France, and great numbers bought by the clergy and 
gentry, to distribute gratis among their poor parishioners 
and tenants. In Pennsylvania, as it discouraged useless 
expense in foreign superfluities, some thought it had its 
share of influence in producing that growing plenty of 
money which was observable for several years after its 
publication. 

I considered my newspaper, also, as another means of 
communicating instruction, and in that view frequently 
reprinted in it extracts from the Spectator, and other 
moral writers ; and sometimes published little pieces of 
my own, which had been first composed for reading in 



69 

our Junto. Of these are a Socratic dialogue, tending 
to prove that, whatever might be his parts and abilities, 
a vicious man could not properly be called a man of 
sense ; and a discourse on self-denial, showing that 
virtue was not secure till its practice became a habitude^ 
and was free from the opposition of contrary incli- 
nations. These may be found in the papers about the 
beginning of 1735. 

In the conduct of my newspaper, I carefully excluded 
all libelling and personal abuse, which is of late years 
become so disgraceful to our country. Whenever I was 
solicited to insert anything of that kind, and the writers 
pleaded, as they generally did, the liberty of the press, 
and that a newspaper was like a stage-coach, in which 
any one who would pay had a right to a place, my 
answer was, that I would print the piece separately if 
desired, and the author might have as many copies as 
he pleased to distribute himself, but that I would not 
take upon me to spread his detraction ; and that, having 
contracted with my subscribers to furnish them with 
what might be either useful or entertaining, I could not 
fill their papers with private altercation, in which they 
had no concern, without doing them manifest injustice. 
Now, many of our printers make no scruple of gratify- 
ing the malice of individuals by false accusations of the 
fairest characters among ourselves, augmenting ani- 
mosity even to the producing of duels ; and are, more- 
over, so indiscreet as to print scurrilous reflections on 
the government of neighboring states, and even on the 
conduct of our best national allies, which may be 



70 

attended with the most pernicious consequences. These 
things I mention as a caution to young printers, and 
that they may be encouraged not to pollute their 
presses and disgrace their profession by such infamous 
practices, but refuse steadily, as they may see by my 
example that such a course of conduct will not, on the 
whole, be injurious to their interests. 

In 1733 I sent one of my journeymen to Charleston. 
South Carolina, where a printer was wanting. I 
furnished him with a press and letters, on an agreement 
of partnership, by w^hich I was to receive one-third of 
the profits of the business, paying one-third of the ex- 
pense. He was a man of learning, and honest but 
ignorant in matters of account ; and, though he some- 
times made me remittances, I could get no account from 
him, nor any satisfactory state of our partnership while 
he lived. On his decease, the business was continued 
by his widow, who, being born and bred in Holland, 
where, as I have been informed, the knowledge of 
accounts makes a part of female education, she not only 
sent me as clear a statement as she could find of the 
transactions past, but continued to account with the 
greatest regularity and exactness every quarter after- 
wards, and managed the business with such success that 
she not only brought up reputably a fomily of children, 
but, at the expiration of the term, was able to purchase 
of me the printing-house, and establish her son in it. 

I mention this affair chiefly for the sake of recom- 
mending that branch of education for our young women 
as likely to be of more use to them and their children. 



71 

in case of widowhood, than either music or dancing, by 
preserving them from losses by imposition of crafty men, 
and enabling them to continue, perhaps, a profitable 
mercantile house, with established correspondence, till 
a son is grown up fit to undertake and go on with it, to 
the lasting advantage and enriching of the family. 

I had begun in 1733 to study languages; I soon made 
myself so much a master of the French as to be able to 
read the books in the language with ease. I then under- 
took the Italian. An acquaintance, who was also learn- 
ing it, used often to tempt me to play chess with him. 
Finding this took up too much of the time I had to 
spare for study, I at length refused to play any more, 
unless on this condition, that the victor in every game 
should have a right to impose a task, either in parts of 
the grammar to be got by heart, or in translations, 
which tasks the vanquished was to perform upon honor, 
before our next meeting. As we played pretty equally, 
we thus beat one another into that language. I after- 
wards, with a little painstaking, acquired as much of the 
Spanish as to read their books also. 

I have already mentioned that I had only one year's 
instruction in a Latin school, and that when very 
young, after which I neglected that language entirely. 
But when I had attained an acquaintance with the 
French, Italian, and Spanish, I was surprised to find, on 
looking over a Latin Testament, that I understood so 
much more of that language than I had imagined, 
which encouraged me to apply myself again to the study 



72 

of it, and I met with more success, as those preceding 
languages had greatly smoothed my way. 

After ten years' absence from Boston, and having 
become easy in my circumstances, I made a journey 
thither to visit my relations, which I could not sooner 
well afford. In returning, I called at Newport to see 
my brother James, then settled there with his printing- 
house. Our former differences were forgotten, and our 
meeting was very cordial and affectionate. He was fast 
declining in his health, and requested of me that, in 
case of his death, which he apprehended not far distant, 
I would take home his son, then but ten years of age, 
and bring him up to the printing business. This I 
accordingly performed, sending him a few years to 
school before I took him into the office. His mother 
carried on the business till he was grown up, when I 
assisted him with an assortment of new types, those of 
his father being in a manner worn out. Thus it was 
that I made my brother ample amends for the service I 
had deprived him of by leaving him so early. 

Our club, the Junto, was found so useful, and afforded 
such satisfaction to the members, that several were 
desirous of introducing their friends, which could not 
well be done without exceeding tvhat we had settled as 
a convenient number, viz., twelve. We had from the 
beginning made it a rule to keep our institution a secret, 
which was pretty well observed ; the intention was to 
avoid applications of improper persons for admittance, 
some of whom, perhaps, we might find it difficult to 
refuse. I was one of those who were against any addi- 



73 

tion to our number, but, instead of it, made in writing 
a proposal that every member separately should endeavor 
to form a subordinate club, with the same rules respect- 
ing queries, etc., and without informing them of the 
connection with the Junto. The advantages proposed 
were, the improvement of so many more young citizens 
by the use of our institutions ; our better acquaintance 
with the general sentiments of the inhabitants on any 
occasion, as the Junto member might propose what 
queries we should desire, and was to report to the Junto 
what passed in his separate club ; the promotion of our 
particular interests in business by more extensive recom- 
mendation, and the increase of our influence in public 
affairs, and our power of doing good by spreading 
through the several clubs the sentiments of the Junto. 

The project was approved, and every member under- 
took to form his club, but they did not all succeed. 
Five or six only were completed, which were called by 
different names, as the Vine, the Union, the Band. 
They were useful to themselves, and afforded us a good 
deal of amusement, information, and instruction, 
besides answering, in some considerable degree, our 
views of influencing the public opinion on particular 
occasions, of which I shall give some instances in course 
of time as they happened. 

My first promotion was my being chosen, in 1736, 
clerk of the General Assembly. The choice was made 
that year without opposition ; but the year following, 
when I was again proposed (the choice, like that of the 
members, being annual), a new member made a long 



74 

speech against me, in order to favor some other candi- 
date. I was, however, chosen, which was the more 
agreeable to me, as, besides the pay for the immediate 
service as clerk, the place gave me a better opportunity 
of keeping up an interest among the members, which 
secured to me the business of printing the votes, laws, 
jjaper money, and othei occasional jobs for the public, 
that, on the whole, were very profitable. 

I therefore did not like the opposition of this new 
member, who was a gentleman of fortune and education, 
with talents that v.-ere likely to give him, in time, great 
influence in the House, which indeed afterwards 
happened. I did not, however, aim at gaining his favor 
by paying any servile respect to him, but, after some 
time, took this other method. Having heard that he 
had in his library a certain very scarce and curious 
book, I wrote a note to him, expressing my desire of 
perusing that book, and requesting that he would do me 
the favor of lending it to me for a few days. He sent 
it immediately, and I returned it in about a week with 
another note, expressing strongly my sense of the favor. 
When we next met in the House, he spoke to me (which 
he had never done before), and with great civility; and 
he ever after manifested a readiness to serve me on all 
occasions, so that we became great friends, and our 
friendship continued to his death. This is another 
instance of the truth of an old maxim I had learned, 
which says, ^^ He that has otice done you a kindness wile 
he more 7'eady to do you another, than he whom you your- 
self have ohligedy And it shows how much more 



75 

profitable it is prudently to remove, than to resent, 
return, and continue inimical proceedings. 

In 1737, Colonel Spotsvvood, late governor of Vir- 
ginia, and then postmaster-general, being dissatisfied 
with the conduct of his deputy at Philadelphia, respect- 
ing some negligence in rendering, and want of exactness 
in framing his accounts, took from him the commission 
and offered it to me. I accepted it readily, and found 
it of great advantage ; for though the salary was small 
it facilitated the correspondence that improved my news- 
paper, increased the number demanded, as well as the 
advertisements to be inserted, so that it came to afford 
me a considerable income. My old competitor's news- 
paper declined proportionably, and I was satisfied 
without retaliating his refusal, while postmaster, to 
permit my papers being carried by the riders. Thus he 
suffered greatly from his neglect in due accounting; 
and I mention it as a lesson to those young men who 
may be employed in managing affairs for others, that 
they should always render accounts, and make remit- 
tances, with great clearness and punctuality. The 
character of observing such a conduct is the most 
powerful of all recommendations to new employments 
and increase of business. 

I began now to turn my thoughts a little to public 
affairs, beginning, however, with small matters. The 
city watch was one of the first things that I conceived 
to want regulation. It was managed by the constables 
of the respective wards in turn ; the constable warned a 
number of housekeepers to attend him for the night. 



76 

Those who chose never to attend paid him six shillings 
a year to be excused, which was supposed to go to hiring 
substitutes, but was, in reality, much more than was 
necessary for that purpose, and made the constableship 
a place of profit ; and the constable, for a little drink, 
often got such ragamuffins about him as a watch, that 
respectable housekeepers did not choose to mix with. 
Walking the rounds, too, was often neglected, and most 
of the nights spent in tippling. I thereupon wrote a 
paper to be read in the Junto, representing these 
irregularities, but insisting more particularly on the 
inequality of this six-shilling tax of the constables, 
respecting the circumstances of those who paid it, since 
a poor widow housekeeper, all whose property to be 
guarded by the watch did not perhaps exceed the value 
of fifty pounds, paid as much as the wealthiest merchant, 
who had thousands of pounds' worth of goods in his 
stores. 

On the whole, I proposed as a more effectual watch, 
the hiring of proper men to serve constantly in that 
business ; and as a more equitable way of supporting 
the charge, the levying a tax that should be proportioned 
to the property. This idea, being approved by the 
Junto, was communicated to the other clubs, but as 
arising in each of them ; and though the plan was not 
immediately carried into execution, yet, by preparing 
the minds of })eople for the change, it paved the way 
for the law obtained a few years after, when the members 
of our clubs were grown into more influence. 



77 

About this time x wrote a paper (first to be read in 
the Junto, but it was afterward published) on the differ- 
ent accidents and carelessnesses by which houses were 
set on fire, with cautions against them, and means pro- 
posed of avoiding them. This was spoken of as a useful 
piece, and gave rise to a project, which soon followed 
it, of forming a company for the more ready extinguish- 
ing of fires, and mutual assistance in removing and 
securing of goods when in danger. Associates in this 
scheme were presently found, amounting to thirty. 
Our articles of agreement obliged every member to 
keep always in good order, and fit for use, a certain 
number of leather buckets, with strong bags and baskets 
(for packing and transporting of goods), which were to 
be brought to every fire ; and we agreed to meet once a 
month and spend a social evening together, in dis- 
coursing and communicating such ideas as occurred to 
us upon the subject of fires, as might be useful in our 
conduct on such occasions. 

The utility of this institution soon appeared, and 
many more desiring to be admitted than we thought 
convenient for one company, they were advised to form 
another, which was accordingly done ; and thus went 
on, one new company after another, till they became so 
numerous as to include most of the inhabitants who were 
men of property ; and now, at the time of my writing 
this, though upward of fifty years since its establish- 
ment, that which I first formed, called the Union Fire 
Company, still subsists, though the first members are all 
deceased but one besides myself, who is older by a year 



78 

than I am. The fines that have been paid by members 
for absence at the monthly meetings have beeA applied 
to the purchase of fire-engines, ladders, fire-hooks, and 
other useful implements for each company, so that I 
question whether there is a city in the world better pro- 
vided with the means of putting a stop to beginning 
conflagrations; and, in fact, since these institutions, the 
city has never lost by fire more than one or two houses 
at a time, and the flames have often been extinguished 
betore the house in which they began had been "half 
consumed. 

My business was now constantly augmenting and my 
circumstances daily growing easier, my newspaper having 
become very profitable, as being for a time almost the 
only one in this and the neighboring provinces. I ex- 
perienced too, the truth of the observation ''that after 
getting the Jii'st hundred pounds it is more easy to get the 
second,'' money itself being of a prolific nature. 

The partnership at Carolina having succeeded, I was 
encouraged to engage in others, and to promote several 
of my workmen, who had behaved well, by establishing 
them in printing-houses in different colonies, on the 
same terms with that in Carolina. Most of them did 
well, being enabled at the end of our term, six years, to 
purchase the types of me and go on working for them- 
selves, by which means several families were raised. 
Partnerships often finish in quarrels ; but I was happy 
in this, that mine were all carried on and ended 
amicably, owing, I think, a good deal to the precaution 
of having very explicitly settled, in our articles, every- 



79 

thing to be done by or expected from each partner, so 
that there was nothing to dispute, which precaution I 
would therefore recommend to all who enter into 
partnerships; for, whatever esteem partners may have 
for, and confidence in each other at the time of the 
contract, little jealousies and disgusts may arise, with 
ideas of inequality in the care and burden of the busi- 
ness, etc., which are attended often with breach of 
friendship and of the connection, perhaps with lawsuits 
and other disagreeable consequences. 

I had, on the whole, abundant reason to be satisfied 
with my being established in Pennsylvania. There 
were, however, two things that I regretted, there being 
no provision for defence, nor for a complete education 
of youth; no militia, nor any college. I therefore, in 
1743, drew up a proposal for establishing an academy; 
and at that time, thinking the Reverend Richard Peters, 
who was out of employ, a fit person to superintend such 
an institution, I communicated the project to him ; but 
he, having more profitable views in the service of the 
proprietaries, which succeeded, declined the under- 
taking ; and, not knowing another at that time suitable 
for such a trust, I let the scheme lie awhile dormant. I 
:succeeded better the next year, 1744, in proposing and 
establishing a Philosophical Society. The paper I wrote 
for that purpose will be found among my writings, if 
not lost. 

With respect to defence, Spain having been several 
years at war against Great Britain, and being at length 
joined by France, which brought us into great danger, 



8o 

and the labored and long-continued endeavor of our 
governor, Thomas, to prevail with our Quaker Assembly 
to pass a militia law, and make other provisions for the 
security of the province, having proved abortive, I pro- 
posed to try what might be done by a voluntary sub- 
scription of the people. To promote this, I first wrote 
and published a pamphlet, entitled Plain Truth, in 
which I stated our defenceless situation in strong lights, 
with the necessity of union and discipline for our 
defence, and promised to propose in a few days an 
association, to be generally signed for that purpose. 
The pamphlet had a sudden and surprising effect. I was 
called upon for the instrument of association, and 
having settled the draft of it with a few friends, I 
appointed a meeting of the citizens in the large building 
before mentioned. The house was pretty full ; I had 
prepared a number of printed copies, and provided pens 
and ink dispersed all over the room. I harangued 
them a little on the subject, read the paper, explained 
it, and then distributed the copies, which were eagerly 
signed, not the least objection being made. 

When the company separated, and the papers were 
collected, we found above twelve hundred signatures ; 
and other copies being dispersed in the country, the 
subscribers amounted at length to upward of ten 
thousand. These all furnished themselves as soon as 
they could with arms, formed themselves into companies 
and regiments, chose their own officers, and met every 
week to be instructed in the manual exercise, and other 
parts of military discipline. The women, by subscrip- 



8i 

tions among themselves, provided silk colors, which 
they presented to the companies, painted with different 
devices and mottoes, which I supplied. 

The officers of the companies composing the Phila- 
delphia regiment, being met, chose me for their colonel ; 
but, conceiving myself unfit, I declined that station, 
and recommended Mr. Lawrence, a fine person, and 
man of influence, who was accordingly appointed. I 
then proposed a lottery to defray the expense of build- 
ing a battery below the town, and furnishing it with 
cannon. It filled expeditiously, and the battery was 
soon erected, the merlons being framed of logs and 
filled with earth. We bought some old cannon from 
Boston, but these not being sufficient, we wrote to 
London for more, soliciting, at the same time, our 
proprietaries for some assistance, though without much 
expectation of obtaining it. 

Meanwhile Colonel Lawrence, Mr. Allen, Abram 
Taylor, Esquire, and myself were sent to New York by 
the associators, commissioned to borrow some cannon 
of Governor Clinton. He at first refused us peremp- 
torily; but at a dinner with his council, where there 
was great drinking of Madeira wine, as the custom of 
that place then was, he softened by degress, and said he 
would lend us six. After a few more bumpers he ad- 
vanced to ten ; and at length he very good-naturedly 
conceded eighteen. They were fine cannon, eighteen- 
pounders, with their carriages, which were soon trans- 
ported and mounted on our batteries, where the associ- 
ators kept a nightly guard while the war lasted, and 



82 

among the rest I regularly took my turn of duty there 
as a common soldier. 

My activity in these operations was agreeable to the 
governor and council ; they took me into confidence, 
and I was consulted by them in every measure where 
their concurrence was thought useful to the association. 
Calling in the aid of religion, I proposed to them the 
proclaiming a fast, to promote reformation, and implore 
the blessing of Heaven on our undertaking. They em- 
braced the motion ; but, as it was the first fast ever 
thought of in the province, the secretary had no pre- 
cedent from which to draw the proclamation. My edu- 
cation in New England, where a fast is proclaimed 
every year, was here of some advantage : I drew it in 
the accustomed style; it was translated into German, 
printed in both languages, and circulated through the 
province. This gave the clergy of the different sects 
an opportunity of influencing their congregations to 
join in the association, and it would probably have been 
general among all but Quakers if the peace had not 
soon intervened. 

It was thought by some of my friends that, by my 
activity in these affairs, I should offend that sect, and 
thereby lose my interest in the Assembly of the province, 
where they formed a great majority. A young gentle- 
man, who had likewise some friends in the Assembly, 
and wished to succeed me as their clerk, acquainted me 
that it was decided to displace me at the next election ; 
and he, through good will, advised me to resign, as more 
consistent with my honor than being turned out. My 



83 

answer to him was, that I had read or heard of some 
pubHc man who made it a rule never to ask for an 
office, and never to refuse one when offered to him. 
"I approve," says I, ''of this rule, and will practise it 
with a small addition : I shall never ask, never refuse, 
nor ever resign an office. If they will have my office 
of clerk to dispose of to another, they shall take it from 
me. I will not, by giving it up, lose my right of some 
time or other making reprisal on my adversaries." I 
heard, however, no more of this ; I was chosen again 
unanimously at the next election. Possibly, as they 
disliked my late intimacy with the members of council, 
who had joined the governors in all the disputes about 
military preparations, with which the House had long 
been harassed, they might have been pleased if I would 
voluntarily have left them ; but they did not care to 
displace me on account merely of my zeal for the 
association, and they could not well give another 
reason. 

In order of time, I should have mentioned before, 
that having, in 1742, invented an open stove for the 
better warming of rooms, and at the same time saving 
fuel, as the the fresh air admitted was warmed in enter- 
ing, I made a present of the model to Mr. Robert 
Grace, one of my early friends, who. having an iron- 
furnace, found the casting of the plates for these stoves 
a profitable thing, as they were growing in demand. 
To promote that demand, I wrote and published a 
pamphlet, entitled ''An Account of the new-invented 
Pennsylvanian Fireplaces ; wherein their Construction 



84 

•ajid Manner of Operation is pariicii/arly explained ; 
their Advantages al)ove every other Method of wa?-mifig 
J^ooms de?nonstrated ; and all Objeetions that have been 
raised against the Use of tJiem answered and obviated,"" 
etc. This pamphlet had a good effect. Governor 
Thomas was so pleased with the construction of this 
stove, as described in it, that he offered to give me a 
patent for the sole vending of them for a term of years ; 
but I declined it from a principle which has ever weighed 
with me on such occasions, viz : That, as we e?ijoy great 
advantages from the itiventions of others, we should be 
glad of an opportiDiity to serve others by atiy inve?ttion of 
vii7's ; and this we should do freely and generously. 

An ironmonger in London, however, assuming a good 
deal of my pamphlet, and working it up into his own, 
and making some small changes in the machine, which 
rather hurt its operation, got a patent for it there, and 
made, as I was told, a little fortune by it. And this is 
not the only instance of patents taken out for my in- 
ventions by others, though not always with the same 
success, v/hich I never contested, as having no desire of 
profiting by patents myself, and hating disputes. The 
use of these fireplaces in very many houses, both of this 
and the neighboring States, has been, and is, a great 
saving of wood to the inhabitants. 

Peace being concluded, and the association business 
therefore at an end, I turned my thoughts again to the 
affair of establishing an academy. The first step I took 
was to associate in the design a number of active friends, 
of whom the junto fiirnished a good i)art ; the next was 



85 

to write and publish a pamphlet, entitled Proposals 
relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania. 
This I distributed among the principal inhabitants 
gratis ; and as soon as I could suppose their minds a 
little prepared by the perusal of it, I set on foot a sub- 
scription for opening and supporting an academy ; it 
was to be paid in quotas yearly for five years ; by so 
dividing it, I judged the subscription might be larger, 
and I believe it was so, amounting to no less, if I 
remember right, than five thousand pounds. 

In the introduction to these proposals, I stated their 
publication, not as an act of mine, but of some public- 
spirited gentlemen, avoiding as much as I could, accord- 
ing to my usual rule, the presenting myself to the 
public as the author of any scheme for their benefit. 

The subscribers, to carry the project into immediate 
execution, chose out of their number twenty-four trus- 
tees, and appointed Mr. Francis, then attorney-general, 
and myself to draw up constitutions for the government 
of the academy ; which being done and signed, a house 
was hired, masters engaged, and the schools opened, I 
think, in the same year, 1749. 

The scholars increasing fast, the house was soon found 
too small, and we were looking out for a piece of ground, 
properly situated, with intent to build, when accident 
threw into our way a large house ready built, which, 
with a few alterations, might well serve our purpose. 
This was a building erected by the hearers of Mr. 
Whitefield, and was obtained for us in the following 
manner. 



S6 

The enthusiasm which existed when the house was 
built had long since abated, and its trustees had not 
been able to procure fresh contributions for paying 
the ground-rent, and discharging some other debts 
the building had occasioned, which embarrassed them 
greatly. Being a member of both sets of trustees, that 
for the building and that for the academy, I had a good 
opportunity of negotiating with both, and brought 
them finally to an agreement, by which the trustees for 
the building were to cede it to those of the academy, 
the latter undertaking to discharge the debt, to keep 
forever open in the building a large hall for occasional 
preachers, according to the original intention, and 
maintain a free school for the instruction of poor 
children. Writings were accordingly drawn, and on 
paying the debts the trustees of the academy were put 
in possession of the premises ; and by dividing the 
great and lofty hall into stories and different rooms 
above and below for the several schools, and purchasing 
some additional ground the whole was soon made fit for 
our purpose, and the scholars removed into the build- 
ing. The whole care and trouble of agreeing with the 
workmen, purchasing materials, and superintending the 
work, fell upon me; and I went through it the more 
cheerfully, as it did not then interfere with my private 
business, having the year before taken a very able, indus- 
trious and honest partner, Mr. David Hall, with whose 
character I was well acquainted, as he had worked for 
me four years. He took off my hands all care of the 
])rinting office, paying me punctually my share of the 



87 

profits. This partnership continued eighteen years, 
successfully for us both. 

The trustees of the academy, after a while, were 
incorporated by a charter from the governor; their 
funds were increased by contributions in Britain and 
grants of land from the proprietaries, to which the 
Assembly has since made considerable addition ; and 
thus was established the present University of Philadel- 
phia. I have been continued one of its trustees from the 
beginning, now near forty years, and have had the very 
great pleasure of seeing a number of the youth who 
have received their education in it, distinguished by 
their improved abilities, serviceable in public stations, 
and ornaments to their country. 

When I disengaged myself from private business, I 
flattered myself that, by the sufficient though moderate 
fortune I had acquired, I had secured leisure during the 
rest of my life for philosophical studies and amuse- 
ments. I purchased all Dr. Spence's apparatus who had 
come from England to lecture in Philadelphia, and I 
proceeded in my electrical experiments with great 
alacrity ; but the public now considering me as a man 
of leisure, laid hold of me for their purposes, every part 
of our civil government, and almost at the same time 
imposing some duty upon me. The governor put me 
into the commission of the peace ; the corporation of the 
city chose me of the common council, and soon after an 
alderman ; and the citizens at large chose me a burgess 
to represent them in Assembly. This latter station was 
the more agreeable to me, as I was at length tired with 



sitting there to hear the debates, in which, as clerk, I 
could take no part, and which were often so uninterest- 
ing that I was induced to amuse myself with making 
magic squares or circles, or anything to avoid weariness ; 
and I conceived my becoming a member would enlarge 
my power of doing good. I would not, however, in- 
sinuate that my ambition was not flattered by all these 
promotions; it certainly was; for considering my low 
beginning, they were great things to me ; and they 
were still more pleasing, as being so many spontaneous 
testimonies of the public good opinion, and by me 
entirely unsolicited. 

The office of justice of the peace I tried a little, by 
attending a few courts, and sitting on the bench to 
hear causes; but finding that more knowledge of the 
common law than I possessed was necessary to act in 
that station with credit, I gradually withdrew from it, 
excusing myself by my being obliged to attend the 
higher duties of a legislator in the Assembly. My 
election to this trust was repeated every year for ten 
years, without my ever asking any elector for his vote, 
or signifying, either directly or indirectly, any desire 
of being chosen. On taking my seat in the House, 
my son was appointed their clerk. 

The year following, a treaty being to be held with 
the Indians at Carlisle, the governor sent a message to 
the House, proposing that they should nominate some 
of their members, to be joined with some members of 
council, as commissioners for that purpose. The House 
named the speaker (Mr. Norris) and myself; and being 



89 

commissioned, we went to Carlisle, and met the Indians 
accordingly. 

As those people are extremely apt to get drunk, and, 
when so, are very quarrelsome and disorderly, we 
strictly forbade the selling any liquor to them ; and 
when they complained of this restriction, we told them 
that if they would continue sober during the treaty, we 
would give them plenty of rum when business was over. 
They promised this, and they kept their promise be,cause 
they could get no rum, and the treaty was conducted 
very orderly, and concluded to mutual satisfaction. 
They then claimed and received the rum ; this was in 
the afternoon ; they were near one hundred men, 
women, and children, and were lodged in temporary 
cabins, built in the form of a square, just without the 
town. In the evening hearing a great noise among 
them the commissioners walked to see what was the 
matter. We found they had made a great bonfire in 
the middle of the square; they were all drunk, men 
and women, quarreling and fighting. Their dark- 
colored bodies, half naked, seen only by the gloomy 
light of the bonfire, running after and beating one 
another with firebrands, accompanied by their horrid 
yellings, formed a scene the most resembling our ideas 
of hell that could well be imagined ; there was no 
appeasing the tumult, and we retired to our lodging. 
At midnight a number of them came thundering at our 
door, demanding more rum, of which we took no 
notice. 



90 

The next day, sensible they had misbehaved in giving 
us that disturbance, they sent three of their old counsel- 
lors to make their apology. The orator acknowledged 
the fault, but laid it upon the rum ; and then endeavored 
to excuse the rum by saying, "7%<? G?'eat Spirit, who 
made all things, made everything for some ttse, and what- 
ever use he designed anything for, that icse it should 
always be put to. Now, when he made ru?n, he said, 
'Let this be for the Indians to get drunk with' audit 
must be so.'' And, indeed, if it be the design of 
Providence to extirpate these savages in order to make 
room for the cultivators of the earth, it seems not im- 
probable that rum may be the appointed means. It has 
already annihilated all the tribes who formerly inhabited 
the sea-coast. 

In 1 75 1, Dr. Thomas Bond, a particular friend of 
mine, conceived the idea of establishing a hospital in 
Philadelphia (a very beneficent design, which has been 
ascribed to me, but was originally his) for the reception 
and cure of poor sick persons, whether inhabitants of 
the province or strangers. He was zealous and active 
in endeavoring to procure subscriptions for it, but the 
proposal being a novelty in America, and at first not 
well understood, he met but with small success. 

At length he came to me with the compliment that 
he found there was no such thing as carrying a public- 
spirited project through without my being concerned in 
it. *'For," says he, "I am often asked by those to 
whom I propose subscribing, Have you consulted 
Franklin upon this business? And what does he think 



91 

of it? And when I tell them that I have not, supposing 
it rather out of your line, they do not subscribe, but say 
they will consider it." I inquired into the nature and 
probable utility of this scheme, and receiving from him 
a very satisfactory explanation, I not only subscribed to 
it myself, but engaged heartily in the design of pro- 
curing subscriptions from others. Previously, however, 
to the solicitation I endeavored to prepare the minds of 
the people by writing on the subject in the newspapers, 
which was my usual custom in such cases, but which Dr. 
Bond had omitted. 

The subscriptions afterwards were more free and 
generous ; but, beginning to flag, I saw they would be 
insufficient without some assistance from the Assembly, 
and therefore proposed to petition for it, which was 
done. The country members did not at first relish the 
project ; they objected that it could only be serviceable 
to the city, and therefore the citizens alone should be at 
the expense of it ; and they doubted whether the citi- 
zens themselves generally approved of it. My allegation 
on the contrary, that it met with such approbation as to 
leave no doubt of our being able to raise two thousand 
pounds by voluntary donations, they considered as a 
most extravagant supposition, and utterly impossible. 

On this I formed my plan ; and, asking leave to 
bring in a bill for incorporating the contributors accord- 
ing to the prayer of their petition, and granting them a 
blank sum of money, which leave was obtained chiefly 
on the consideration that the House could throw the 
bill out if they did not like it, I drew it so as to make 



92 

the important clause a conditional one, viz., "And be 
it enacted, by the authority aforesaid, that when the 
said contributors shall have met and chosen their man- 
agers and treasurer, and shall have raised by their contri- 
butions a capital stock of two thousand pounds value (the 
yearly interest of which is to be applied to the accommo- 
dating of the sick poor in the said hospital, and of 
charge for diet, attendance, advice, and medicines), 
and shall fnake the same appear to the satisfactioft of the 
speaker of the Assembly for the time being, that then it 
shall and may be lawful for the said speaker, and he is 
hereby required, to sign an order on the provincial 
treasurer for the payment of two thousand pounds, in 
two yearly payments, to the treasurer of the said 
hospital, to be applied to the founding, building, and 
finishing of the same." 

This condition carried the bill through ; for the 
members who had opposed the grant, and now con- 
ceived they might have the credit of being charitable 
without the expense, agreed to its passage; and then^ 
in soliciting subscriptions among the people, we urged 
the conditional promise of the law as an additional 
motive to give, since every man's donation would be 
doubled ; thus the clause worked both ways. The sub- 
scriptions accordingly soon exceeded the requisite sum^ 
and we claimed and received the public gift, which en- 
abled us to carry the design into execution. A con- 
venient and handsome building was soon erected ; the 
institution has by constant experience been found useful, 
and flourishes to this day ; and I do not remember any 



93 

of my political manoeuvres, the success of which gave 
me at the time more pleasure, or wherein, after thinking 
■of it, I more easily excused myself for having made 
some use of cunning. 

Our city, though laid out with a beautiful regularity, 
the streets large, straight, and crossing each other at 
right angles, had the disgrace of suffering those streets 
to remain long unpaved, and in wet weather the wheels 
of heavy carriages ploughed them into a quagmire, so 
that it was difficult to cross them ; and in dry weather 
the dust was offensive. I had lived near what was called 
the Jersey Market, and saw with pain the inhabitants 
wading in mud while purchasing their provisions. A 
strip of ground down the middle of that market was at 
length paved with brick, so that, being once in the 
market, they had firm footing, but were often over 
shoes in dirt to get there. By talking and writing on 
the subject, I was at length instrumental in getting the 
street paved with stone between the market and the 
bricked foot pavement, that was on each side next the 
houses. This, for some time, gave an easy access to the 
market dry-shod ; but the rest of the street not being 
paved, whenever a carriage came out of the mud upon 
this pavement, it shook off and left its dirt upon it, and 
it was soon covered with mire, which was not removed, 
the city as yet having no scavengers. 

After some inquiry, I found a poor, industrious man, 
who was willing to undertake keeping the pavement 
clean, by sweeping it twice a week, carrying off the dirt 
from before all the neighbors' doors, for the sum of six- 



94 

pence per month, to be paid by each house. I then 
wrote and printed a paper setting forth the advantages 
to the neighborhood that might be obtained by this 
small expense ; the greater ease in keeping our houses 
clean, so much dirt not being brought in by people's 
feet ; the benefit to the shops by more custom, as buyers 
could more easily get at them ; and by not having, in 
windy weather, the dust blown in upon their goods, 
etc., etc. I sent one of these papers to each house, and 
in a day or two went round to see who would subscribe 
an agreement to pay these sixpences ; it was unanimously 
signed, and for a time well executed. All the in- 
habitants of the city were delighted with the cleanliness 
of the pavement that surrounded the market, it being a 
convenience to all, and this raised a general desire to 
have all the streets paved, and made the people more 
willing to submit to a tax for that purpose. 

After some time I drew a bill for paving the city, and 
brought it into the Assembly. It was just before I went 
to England, in 1757, and did not pass till I was gone, 
and then with an alteration in the mode of assessment, 
which I thought not for the better, but with an 
additional provision for lighting as well as paving the 
streets, which was a great improvement. It was by a 
private person, the late Mr. John Clifton, his giving a 
sample of the utility of lamps, by placing one at his 
door, that the people were first impressed with the idea 
of lighting all the city. The honor of this public bene- 
fit has also been ascribed to me, but it belongs truly to 
that gentleman. 1 did but follow his example, and have 



95 

only some merit to claim respecting the form of our 
lamps, as differing from the globe lamps we were at first 
supplied with from London. Those we found incon- 
venient in these respects : they admitted no air below ; 
the smoke, therefore, did not readily go out above, but 
circulated in the globe, lodged on its inside, and soon 
obstructed the light they were intended to afford ; 
giving, besides, the daily trouble of wiping them clean ; 
and an accidental stroke on one of them would 
demolish it and render it totally useless. I therefore 
suggested the composing them of four flat panes, with a 
long funnel above to draw up the smoke, and crevices 
admitting air below, to facilitate the ascent of the 
smoke ; by this means they were kept clean, and did 
not grow dark in a few hours, as the London lamps do, 
but continued bright till morning, and an accidental 
stroke would generally break but a single pane, easily 
repaired. 

Having been for some time employed by the post- 
master-general of America as his comptroller in regu- 
lating several offices, and bringing the officers to ac- 
count, I was, upon his death in 1753, appointed, 
jointly with Mr. William Hunter, to succeed him, by a 
commission from the postmaster-general in England. 
The American office never had hitherto paid anything 
to that of Britain. We were to have six hundred 
pounds a year between us, if we could make that sum 
out of the profits of the office. To do this a variety of 
improvements were necessary ; some of these were 
inevitably at first expensive, so that in the first four years 



96 

the office became above nine hundred pounds in debt to 
us. But it soon after began to repay us ; and before I 
was displaced by a freak of the ministers, we had brought 
it to yield three times as much clear revenue to the 
crown as the post-office of Ireland. 

The business of the post-office occasioned my taking 
a journey this year to New England, where the College 
of Cambridge, of their own motion, presented me with 
the degree of Master of Arts. Yale College, in Con- 
necticut, had before made me a similar compliment. 
Thus, without studying in any college, I came to partake 
of their honors. They were conferred in consideration 
of my improvements and discoveries in the electric 
branch of natural philosophy. 

In 1754, war with France being again apprehended, 
a congress of commissioners from the different colonies 
was, by an order of the Lords of Trade, to be assembled 
at Albany, there to confer with the chiefs of the Six 
Nations concerning the means of defending both their 
country and ours. Governor Hamilton, having received 
this order, acquainted the House with it, requesting 
they would furnish proper presents for the Indians, to 
be given on this occasion ; and naming the speaker 
(Mr. Norris) and myself to join Mr. Thomas Penn and 
Mr. Secretary Peters as commissioners to act for Penn- 
sylvania. The House approved the nomination, and 
provided the goods for the present, though they did not 
much like treating out of the provinces; and we met 
the other commissioners at Albany about the middle 
of June. 



97 

In our way thither, I projected and drew a plan for 
the union of all the colonies under one government, so 
far as might be necessary for defence and other im- 
portant general purposes. As we passed through New^ 
York, I had there shown my project to Mr. James 
Alexander and Mr. Kennedy, two gentlemen of great 
knowledge in public affairs, and, being fortified by 
their approbation, I ventured to lay it before the 
Congress. It then appeared that several of the com- 
missioners had formed plans of the same kind. A pre- 
vious question was first taken, whether a union should 
be established, which passed in the affirmative unani- 
mously. A committee was then appointed, one member 
from each colony, to consider the several plans, and 
report. Mine happened to be jjreferred, and, with a 
few amendments, was accordingly reported. 

By this i)lan the general government was to be ad- 
ministered by a president-general, appointed and sup- 
ported by the crown, and a general council w^as to be 
chosen b}- the representatives of the people of the 
several colonies, met in their respective assemblies. 
The debates upon it in Congress went on daily, hand 
in hand with the Indian business. Many objections 
and difficulties were started, but at length they were 
all overcome, and the plan was unanimously agreed to, 
and copies ordered to be transmitted to the Board of 
Trade and to the assemblies of the several provinces. 
Its fate was singular : the assemblies did not adopt it, 
as they all thought there was too much prerogative in it, 
and in England it was judged to have too much of the 



98 

deinocratic. The Board of Trade did not approve it, 
nor recommend it for the approbation of his majesty; 
but another scheme was formed, supposed to answer the 
same purpose better, Avhereby the governors of the 
l^rovinces, with some members of their respective coun- 
cils, were to meet and order the raising of troops, 
building of forts, etc., and to draw on the treasury of 
Great Britain for the expense, which was afterwards to 
be refunded by an act of parliament laying a tax on 
America. My plan, with my reasons in support of it, 
is to be found among my political papers that are 
printed. 

War being in a manner commenced with France, the 
government of Massachusetts Bay projected an attack 
upon Crown Point and sent Mr. Quincy to Pennsyl- 
vania, and Mr. Pownall, afterward Governor Pownall, 
to New York, to solicit assistance. As I was in the 
Assembly, knew its temper, and was Mr. Quincy' s 
countryman, he applied to me for my influence and 
assistance. I dictated his address to them, which was 
well received. They voted an aid of ten thousand 
pounds, to be laid out in provisions. But the governor 
refusing his assent to their bill (which included this 
with other sums granted for the use of the crown,) 
unless a clause were inserted exempting the proprietary 
estate from bearing any part of the tax that would be 
necessary, the Assembly, though very desirous of mak- 
ing their grant to New England effectual, were at a loss 
how to accomplish it. Mr. Quincy labored hard with 
the governor to obtain his assent, but he was obstinate. 



99 

I then suggested a method of doing the business 
without the governor, by orders on the trustees of the 
Loan Office, which, by law the Assembly had the right 
of drawing. There M-as, indeed, little or no money at 
that time in the office, and therefore I proposed that 
the orders should be payable in a year, and to bear an 
interest of five per cent. With these orders I supposed 
the provisions might easily be purchased. The Assem- 
bly, with very little hesitation, adopted the proposal. 
The orders were immediately printed, and I was one of 
the committee directed to sign and dispose of them. 
The fund for paying them was the interest of all the 
paper currency then extant in the province upon loan,, 
together with the revenue arising from the excise, which 
being known to be more than sufficient, they obtained 
credit, and were not only taken in payment for the 
provisions, but many moneyed people, who had cash 
lying by them, vested it in those orders, which they 
found advantageous, as they bore interest while upon 
hand, and might upon any occasion be used as money, 
so that they were eagerly all bought up, and in a feu- 
weeks none of them were to be seen. Thus this im- 
portant affair was by ni}- means completed. Mr. 
Quincy returned thanks to the Assembly in a handsome 
memorial, went home highly pleased with the success 
of his embassy, and ever after bore for me the most 
cordial and affectionate friendship. 

The British government, not choosing to permit the 
union of the colonies as proposed at Albany, and to 
trust that union with their defence, lest thev should 



thereby grow loo military and feel their own strength, 
.suspicions and jealousies at this time being entertained 
of them, sent over General Braddock with two regi- 
ments of regular English troops for that purpose. He 
landed at Alexandria, in Virginia, and thence marched 
to Fredericktown, in Maryland, where he halted for 
carriages. Our Assembly apprehending, from some in- 
formation, that he had conceived violent prejudices 
against them, as averse to the service, wished me to 
wait upon him, not as from them, but as postmaster- 
general, under the guise of proposing to settle with him 
the mode of conducting with most celerity and certainty 
the despatches between him and the governors of the 
several provinces, with whom he must necessarily have 
continual correspondence, and of which they proposed 
to pay the expense. My son accompanied me on this 
journey. 

We found the general at Fredericktown, waiting im- 
patiently for the return of those he had sent through 
the back parts of Maryland and Virginia to collect 
wagons. I stayed with him several days, dined with 
him daily, and had full opportunity of removing his 
prejudices, by the information of what the Assembly 
had before his arrival actually done, and were willing 
to do, to facilitate his operations. When I was about 
to depart, tlie returns of wagons to be obtained were 
brought in, by which it api)eared that they amounted 
only to twenty-five, and not all of those were in service- 
able condition. The General and all the officers were 
surprised, declared the expedition was then at an end, 



being impossible, and exclaimed against the ministers 
for ignorantly sending them into a coimtry destitute of 
the means of conveying their stores, baggage, etc., not 
less than one hundred and fifty wagons being necessary. 

I happened to say I thought it was a pity they had 
not been landed in Pennsylvania, as in that country 
almost every farmer has his wagon. The general 
eagerly laid hold of my words, and said, ''Then you, 
sir, who are a man of interest there, can procure them 
for us ; and I beg you will undertake it." I asked what 
terms were to be offered the owners of the wagons ; 
and I was desired to put on paper the terms that ap- 
peared to me necessary. This I did, and they were 
agreed to and a commission and instructions accord- 
ingly prepared immediately. 

I received of the general about eight hundred 
pounds, to be disbursed in advance-money to the wagon 
owners; but that sum being insufficient, I advanced 
upward of two hundred pounds more, and in two weeks 
the one hundred and fifty wagons, with two hundred 
and fifty-nine carrying horses, were on their march for 
the camp. The advertisement promised payment 
according to the valuation, in case any wagon or horse 
should be lost. The owners, however, alleging they 
did not know General Braddock, or what dependence 
might be had on his promise, insisted on my bond for 
the performance, which I accordingly gave them. 

While I was at the camp, supping one evening with 
the officers of Colonel Dunbar's regiment, he repre- 
sented to me his concern for the subalterns, who, he 



T02 

said, were generally not in affluence, and could ill afford, 
in this dear country, to lay in the stores that might be 
necessary in so long a march through a wilderness, where 
nothing was to be purchased. I commiserated their 
case, and resolved to endeavor procuring them some 
relief. I said nothing, however, to him of my intention, 
but wrote the next morning to the committee of the 
Assembly, who had the disposition of some public 
money, warmly recommending the case of these officers 
to their consideration, and proposing that a present 
should be sent them of necessaries and refreshments. 
My son, who had some experience of a camp life, and 
of its wants, drew up a list for me, which I enclosed in 
my letter. The committee approved, and used such 
diligence that, conducted by my son, the stores arrived 
at the camp as soon as the wagons. They consisted of 
twenty parcels. 

These twenty parcels, well packed, were placed on as 
many horses, each parcel, with the horse, being intended 
as a present for one officer. They were very thankfully 
received, and the kindness acknowledged by letters to 
me from the colonels of both regiments, in the most 
grateful terms. The general, too, was highly satisfied 
with my conduct in procuring him the wagons, and 
readily paid my account of disbursements, thanking me 
repeatedly, and requesting my further assistance in send- 
ing provisions after him. I undertook this also, and 
was busil)' emplo\ed in it till we heard of his defeat, 
advancing for the service of my own money upwards of 
one thousand pounds sterling, of which I sent him an 



I03 

account. It came to his hands, luckily for me, a few- 
days before the battle, and he returned me immediately 
an order on the paymaster for the round sum of one 
thousand pounds, leaving the remainder to the next 
account. I consider this payment as good luck, having 
never been able to obtain that remainder, of which more 
hereafter. 

This general was, I think, a brave man, and might 
probably have made a figure as a good officer in some 
European war. But he had too much self-confidence, 
too high an opinion of the validity of regular troops, 
and too mean a one of both Americans and Indians, 
George Croghan, our Indian interpreter, joined him on 
his march with one hundred of those people, who 
might have been of great use to his army as guides and 
scouts if he had treated them kindly ; but he slighted 
and neglected them, and they gradually left him. 

In conversation with him one day, he was giving me 
some account of his intended progress. "After taking 
Fort Duquesne," says he, ''I am to proceed to Niagara ; 
and, having taken that, to Frontenac, if the season will 
allow time; and I suppose it will, for Duquesne can 
hardly detain me above three or four days ; and then I 
see nothing that can obstruct my march to Niagara." 
Having before revolved in my mind the long line his 
army must make in their march by a very narrow road, 
to be cut for them through the woods and bushes, and 
also what I had read of a former defeat of fifteen 
hundred French, who invaded the Illinois country, I 
had conceived some doubts and some fears for the event 



I04 

of the cami)aign. But I ventured only to say, "To be 
sure, sir, if you arrive well before Duquesne, with these 
fine troops, so well provided with artillery, the fort 
though completely fortified, and assisted with a very 
strong garrison, can probably make but a short re- 
sistance. The only danger 1 apprehend of obstruction 
to your march is from the ambuscades of the Indians, 
who, by constant practice, are dexterous in laying and 
executing them ; and the slender line, near four miles 
long, which your army must make, may expose it to be 
attacked by surprise in its flanks, and to be cut like a 
thread into several pieces, which, from their distance, 
can not come up in time to support each other." 

He smiled at my ignorance, and replied, ''These 
savages may, indeed, be a formidable enemy to your 
raw American militia, but upon the king's regular and 
disciplined troops. Sir, it is impossible they should make 
any impression." I was conscious of an impropriety in 
my disputing with a military man in matters of his pro- 
fession, and said no more. The enemy, however, did 
not take the advantage of his army which I apprehended 
its long line of march exposed it to, but let it advance 
without interru})tion till within nine miles of the place; 
and then, when more in a body (for it had just passed a 
river, where the front had halted till all were come 
over), and in a more open i)art of the woods than any it 
had passed, attacked its advanced guard by a heavy fire 
from behind trees and bushes, which was the first intelli- 
gence the general had of an enemy's being near him. 
This guard being disordered, the general hurried the 



I05 

troops up to their assistance, which was done in great 
confusion, through wagons, baggage, and cattle; and 
presently the fire came upon their flank : the officers, 
being on horseback, were more easily distinguished, 
picked out as marks, and fell very fast ; and the soldiers 
w^ere crowded together in a huddle, having or hearing 
no orders, and standing to be shot at till two-thirds of 
them were killed; and then, being seized with a panic, 
the whole fled with precipitation. 

The wagoners took each a horse out of his team and 
scampered ; their example was immediately followed by 
others ; so that all the wagons, provisions, artillery, and 
stores were left to the enemy. The general, being 
wounded, was brought off with difficulty ; his secretary, 
Mr. Shirley, was killed by his side ; and out of eighty- 
six oflicers, sixty-three were killed or wounded, and 
seven hundred and fourteen men killed of eleven 
hundred. These eleven hundred had been picked men 
from the whole army; the rest had been left behind 
with Colonel Dunbar, who was to follow with the 
heavier part of the stores, provisions, and baggage. 
The flyers, not being pursued, arrived at Dunbar's camp, 
and the panic they brought with them instantly seized 
him and all his people; and, though he had now above 
one thousand men, and the enemy who had beaten 
Braddock did not at most exceed four hundred Indians 
and French together, instead of proceeding, and en- 
deavoring to recover some of the lost honor, he ordered 
all the stores, ammunition, etc., to be destroyed, that he 
might have more horses to assist his flight towards the 



io6 

settlements, and less lumber to remove. He was there 
met with requests from the governors of Virginia, Mary- 
land, and Pennsylvania, that he would post his troops 
on the frontiers, so as to afford some protection to the 
inhabitants; but he continued his hasty march through 
all the country, not thinking himself safe till he arrived 
at Philadelphia, where the inhabitants could protect 
him. This whole transaction gave us Americans the 
first suspicion that our exalted ideas of the prowess of 
British regulars had not been well founded. 

In their first march, too, from their landing till they 
got beyond the settlements, they had plundered and 
stripped the inhabitants, totally ruining some poor 
families, besides insulting, abusing, and confining the 
people if they remonstrated. This was enough to put 
us out of conceit of such defenders, if we had really 
wanted any. How different was the conduct of our 
French friends in 1781, who, during a march through 
the most inhabited part of our country from Rhode 
Island to Virginia, near seven hundred miles, occa- 
sioned not the smallest complaint for the loss of a pig, 
a chicken, or even an apple. 

Captain Orme, who was one of the general's aides- 
de-camp, and, being grievously wounded, was brought 
off with him, and continued with him to his death, 
which happened in a few days, told me that he was 
totally silent all day, and at night only said, " IV/io 
would have thought it?'' That he was silent again the 
following day, saying only at last, '^We shall better 



I07 

know how to deal with them another time T and died in 
a few minutes after. 

The secretary's papers, with all the general's orders, 
instructions, and correspondence, falling into the ene- 
my's hands, they selected and translated into French 
a number of the articles, which they printed, to prove 
the hostile intentions of the British court before the 
declaration of war. Among these I saw some letters 
of the general to the ministry, speaking highly of the 
great service I had rendered the army, and recom- 
mending me to their notice. David Hume, who was 
some years after secretary to Lord Hertford, when 
minister in France, and afterward to General Conway, 
when secretary of state, told me he had seen among the 
papers in that office, letters from Braddock highly 
recommending me. But the expedition having been 
unfortunate, my service it seems, was not thought of 
much value, for those recommendations were never of 
any use to me. 

As to rewards from himself, I asked only one, which 
was that he would give orders to his officers not to enlist 
any more of our bought servants, and that he would 
discharge such as had been already enlisted. This he 
readily granted, and several were accordingly returned 
to their masters, on my application. 

As soon as the loss of the wagons and horses was 
generally known, all the owners came upon me for the 
valuation which I had given bond to pay. Their de- 
mands gave me a great deal of trouble. I acquainted 
them that the money was ready in the paymaster's 



io8 

hands, but that order for paying it must first be 
obtained from General Shirley, and that I had applied 
for it, but he l^eing at a distance, an answer could not 
soon be received, and they must have patience. All 
this, ho'.vevcr, was not sufficient to satisfy them, and 
some began to sue me. General Shirley at length re- 
lieved me from this terrible situation by appointing 
commissioners to examine the claims, and ordering pay- 
ment. The}' amounted to near twenty thousand pounds,, 
which to })ay would have ruined me. 

In 1746, being at Boston, I met there with a Dr. 
Spence, who was lately arrived from Scotland, and 
showed me some electric experiments. They were im- 
perfectly performed, as he was not very expert ; but, 
being on a subject quite new to me, they equally sur- 
prised and pleased me. Soon after my return to Phil- 
adelphia, our library company received from Mr. P. 
Collinson, Fellow of the Royal Society of London, a 
present of a glass tube, with some account of the use of 
it in making such experiments. I eagerly seized the 
opportunity of repeating what I had seen at Boston ; 
and, by much practice, acquired great readiness in per- 
forming those, also, which we had an account of from 
England, adding a number of new ones. I say much 
practice, for my house was continually full, for some 
time, with people who came to see these new wonders. 

To divide a little this incumbrance among my friends, 
I caused a number of similar tubes to be blown in our 
glass-house, with which they furnished themselves, so 
that we had at length several performers. Among these. 



I09 

the principal was Mr. Kinnersley, an ingenious neighbor, 
who, being out of business, I encouraged to undertake 
showing the experiments for money, and drew up for 
him two lectures, in which the experiments were ranged 
in such order, and accompanied with such explanations 
in such method, as that the foregoing should assist in 
comprehending the following. He procured an elegant 
apparatus for the purpose, in which all the little 
machines that I had roughly made for myself were 
neatly formed by instrument-makers. His lectures were 
well attended, and gave great satisfaction ; and after 
some time he went through the colonies, exhibiting 
them in every capital town, and picked up some money. 
In the West India islands, indeed, it was with difficulty 
the experiments could be made, from the general 
moisture of the air. 

Obliged as we were to Mr. CoUinson for his present 
of the tube, etc., I thought it right he should be in- 
fprmed of our success in using it, and wrote him several 
letters containing accounts of our experiments. He got 
them read in the Royal Society, where they were not at 
first thought worth so much notice as to be printed in 
their Transactions. One paper, which I wrote for Mr. 
Kinnersley, on the sameness of lightning with electricity, 
I sent to Dr. Mitchel, an acquaintance of mine, and one 
of the members also of that society, who wrote me word 
that it had been read but was laughed at by the con- 
noisseurs. The papers, however, being shown to Dr. 
Fothergill, he thought them of too much value to be 
stifled, and advised the printing of them. Mr. 



no 

Collinson then gave Ihem to Cave for publication in hi<> 
Gentlemen's Magazine ; but he chose to print them 
separately in a pamphlet, and Dr. Fothergill wrote the 
preface. Cave, it seems, judged rightly for his profit, 
for by the additions that arrived afterward, they swelled 
to a quarto volume, which has had five editions, and 
cost him nothing for copy-money. 

It was, however, some time before those papers were 
much taken notice of in England. A copy of them 
happening to fall into the hands of the Count de Buffon, 
a philosopher deservedly of great reputation in France, 
and, indeed, all over Europe, he prevailed with M. 
Dubourg to translate them into French, and they were 
printed at Paris. The publication offended the Abbe 
NoUet, preceptor in Natural Philosophy to the royal 
family, and an able experimenter, who had formed and 
published a theory of electricity, which then had the 
general vogue. He could not at first believe that such 
a work came from America, and said it must have been 
fabricated by his enemies at Paris, to oppose his system. 
Afterwards, having been assured that there really ex- 
isted such a person as Franklin at Philadelphia, which 
he had doubted, he wrote and published a volume of 
Letters, chiefly addressed to me, defending his theory, 
and denying the verity of my experiments, and of the 
positions deduced from them. 

I once purposed answering the abbe, and actually 
began the answer; but, on consideration that my writ- 
ings contained a description of experiments which any 
one might repeat and verify, and if not to be verified. 



Ill 

could not be defended ; or of observations offered as 
conjectures, and not delivered dogmatically, therefore, 
not laying me under any obligation to defend them ; 
and reflecting that a dispute between two persons, writ- 
ing in different languages, might be lengthened greatly 
by mistranslations, and thence misconceptions of one 
another's meaning, much of one of the abbe's letters 
being founded on an error in the translation, I con- 
cluded to let my papers shift for themselves, believing 
it was better to spend what time I could spare from 
public business in making new experiments, than in 
disputing about those already made. I therefore never 
answered M. NoUet, and the event gave me no cause to 
repent my silence; for my friend M. le Roy, of the 
Royal Academy of Sciences, took up my cause and 
refuted him; my book was translated into the Italian, 
German, and Latin languages; and the doctrine it con- 
tained was by degrees universally adopted by the 
philosophers of Europe, in preference to that of the 
abbe ; so that he lived to see himself the last of his 

sect, except Monsieur B , of Paris, his eleve and 

immediate disciple. 

What gave my book the more sudden and general 
celebrity, was the success of one of its proposed ex- 
periments, made by Messrs. Dalibard aud De Lor at 
Marly, for drawing lightning from the clouds. This 
engaged the public attention everywhere. M. de Lor, 
who had an apparatus for experimental philosophy, and 
lectured in that branch of science, undertook to repeat 
what he called the Philadelphia Experiments ; and, after 



112 

they were performed before the king and court, all the 
curious of Paris flocked to see them. I will not swell 
this narrative with an account of that capital experi- 
ment, nor of the infinite pleasure I received in the 
success of a similar one I made soon after with a kite at 
Philadelphia, as both are to be found in the histories of 
electricity. 

Dr. Wright, an English physician, when at Paris, 
wrote to a friend, who was of the Royal Society, an 
account of the high esteem my experiments were in 
among the learned abroad, and of their wonder that 
my writings had been so little noticed in England, 
The society, on this, resumed the consideration of the 
letters that had been read to them ; and the celebrated 
Dr. Watson drew up a summary account of them, and 
of all I had afterwards sent to England on the subject, 
which he accompanied with some praise of the writer. 
This summary was then printed in their Transactions ; 
and some members of the society in London, particu- 
larly the very ingenious Mr. Canton, having verified 
the experiment by procuring lightning from the clouds 
by a pointed rod, and acquainted them with the success, 
they soon made me more than amends for the slight 
with which they had before treated me. Without my 
having made any application for that honor, they chose 
me a member, and voted that 1 should be excused the 
customary payments, which would have amounted to 
twenty-five guineas ; and ever since have given me their 
transactions gratis. They also presented me with the 
gold medal of Sir Godfrey Copely, for the year 1753, 



113 

the delivery of which was accompanied by a very hand- 
some speech of the president, Lord Macclesfield, 
wherein I was highly honored. 

Our new governor, Captain Denny, brought over for 
me the before-mentioned medal from the Royal Societv, 
which he presented to me at an entertainment given 
him by the city. He accompanied it with very polite 
expressions of his esteem for me, having as he said, been 
long acquainted with my character. After dinner^ 
when the company, as was customary at that time, were 
engaged in drinking, he took me aside into another 
room, and acquainted me that he had been advised bv 
his friends in England to cultivate a friendship with me, 
as one who was capable of giving him advice, and of 
contributing most effectually to the making his adminis- 
tration easy; that he therefore desired of all things to 
have a good understanding with me, and he begged 
me to be assured of his readiness on all accasions to 
render me every service that might be in his power. 
He said much to me, also, of the proprietor's good 
disposition towards the province, and of the advantage 
it might be to us all, and to me in particular, if the 
opposition that had been so long continued to his 
measures was dropped, and harmony restored between 
him and the people ; in effecting which, it was thought, 
no one could be more serviceable than myself; and I 
might depend on adequate acknowledgments and re- 
compenses. The drinkers finding we did not return 
immediately to the table, sent us a decanter of Madeira, 
which the governor made liberal use of, and in propor- 



114 

tion became more profuse of his solicitations and 
promises. 

My answers were to this purpose : that my circum- 
stances, thanks to God, were such as to make proprie- 
tary favors unnecessary to me ; and that, being a 
member of the Assembly, I could not possibly accept 
of any ; that, however, I had no personal enmity to 
the proprietary, and that, whenever the public measures 
he proposed should appear to be for the good of the 
people, no one should espouse and forward them more 
zealously than myself; my past opposition having been 
founded on this, that the measures which had been 
urged were evidently intended to serve the proprietary 
interest, with great prejudice to that of the people , 
that I was much obliged to him (the governor) for his 
profession of regard to me, and that he might rely on 
everything in my power to render his administration as 
easy to him as possible, hoping at the same time that he 
had not brought with him the same unfortunate in- 
structions his predecessor had been hampered with. 

On this he did not then explain himself; but when 
he afterwards came to do business with the Assembly, 
they appeared again, the disputes were renewed, and 
I was as active as ever in the opposition, being the 
penman, first, of the request to have a communication 
of the instructions, and then of the remarks upon them, 
which may be found in the votes of the time, and in 
Historical Review I afterward published. But between 
us personally no enmity arose ; we were often together ; 
he was a man of letters, had seen much of the world. 



"5 

and was very entertaining and pleasing in conversation. 

The Assembly finally finding the proprietary obsti- 
nately persisted in shackling their deputies with in- 
structions inconsistent not only with the privileges of 
the people, but with the service of the crown, resolved 
to petition the king against them, and appointed me 
their agent to go over to England, to present and 
support the petition. 

It was about the beginning of April that I came to 
New York and I think it was near the end of June 
before we sailed. Upon my arrival in England I set out 
immediately, with my son, for London, and we only 
stopped a little by the way to view Stonehenge on 
Salisbury Plain, and Lord Pembroke's house and 
gardens, wnth the very curious antiquities at Wilton. 
We arrived in London the 27th of July, 1757. 

END OF THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 



I add to the foregoing autobiography, which closes 
with the 27th of July, 1757, a few facts ,of Fr.inklin's 
subsequent life, displaying some of the fruits of his self 
education. 

In England, in 1757, he was endeavoring as the agent 
of Pennsylvania, to obtain from the son of William 
Penn, or from the King, a settlement of the disputes 
between the Penn family and the Colony, and par- 
ticularly to compel the Penn family to bear their proper 
share of the expenses of the province. He met with 
bitter and prolonged opposition. While in England 



ii6 

upon this mission he enjoyed the society of the states- 
men, scholars and scientists of England, and he is said 
to have suggested and advised the attempt which led to 
the Conquest of Canada. After three years of effort he 
succeeded in accomplishing the purpose of his mission 
to the satisfaction of the people of Pennsylvania. 
While in England, and in 1760, he published a 
pamphlet strongly urging the retention of Canada as 
one of the conditions of making peace with France, 
and this policy was adopted. The same year he was 
appointed by the Assembly of Pennsylvania to receive 
and invest the sum of about thirty thousand pounds, 
awarded by Great Britain to Pennsylvania on account of 
her expenditures and losses during the French War; a 
trust which he successfully performed. Some part of 
the time of this visit to England was occupied by a tour 
through Holland and Flanders, and he was very much 
tingaged also in philosophical studies and experiments. 
In 1762 he invented a musical instrument called the 
Armonica, which was for many years quite fashionable 
in Europe. In the same year he received the degree of 
Doctor of Laws from the Universities of Oxford and 
Edinburgh. He left England in August of that year 
reaching America in November. He had in the mean- 
time been elected a Member of the Assembly of Penn- 
sylvania. In 1763 he made a tour through the Middle 
and New England states as Postmaster General of the 
Colonies. 

New difficulties arose between the Assembly of Penn- 
sylvania and the Penn family, who under the King's 



117 

Charter were the proprietaries of all the unsold lands in 
the Colony, and claimed various powers as to its 
government which were denied by the Assembly. 
Franklin wrote a pamphlet in favor of transferring the 
Covernment from the proprietaries to the Crown, drew 
a petition for such transfer and was chosen by the 
Assembly as its agent to present its case in the Court of 
Great Britain. He sailed for England in November, 
1767. He devoted himself strenuously to the objects of 
his mission and also to other American interests both in 
France and in England. He was conspicuous in his 
opposition to the Stamp Act, and added greatly to his 
reputation by his evidence in respect to American affairs 
upon a public examination in the House of Commons. 
These affairs absorbed the attention of the Ministry and 
prevented the success of his mission. He was appointed 
the agent of Georgia in Great Britain in 1768 and of 
New Jersey in 1769. In 1773 a new translation into 
French and a third French edition of his philosophical 
writings were published, and a fifth English edition was 
printed the same year. 

In December 1772, Franklin procured and sent to 
the Chairman of the American Committee of Corres- 
pondence in Massachusetts certain letters from Hutch- 
inson the Royal Governor of that Province, to Mr. 
Thomas Whately a member of Parliament. He believed 
that the patriots of Massachusetts should be informed 
of their contents. They were finally published in 
America. A furious assault was made in England upon 
Franklin. He was summoned before the Privy Council, 



ii8 

abused and insulted by the Crown officers in a manner 
quite unexampled in the annals of any respectable 
court, and was dismissed from his office of Deputy 
Postmaster General in America. This was in 1774. 
His wife died the same year; a loss which he keenly 
felt, although he had been much separated from her. 
During this visit m England, Franklin was on cordial 
terms with the statesmen, who were friendly to the 
American cause, and by pen and conversation did much 
to enlighten the British public in regard to the claims- 
and the rights of the Colonists. He left England in 
1 7 75 J o^ the 25th of March, shortly before the battle 
of Lexington, reaching Philadelphia, May 5th, sixteen 
days after that memorable event. 

Immediately upon his arrival he was unanimousK 
chosen to represent Pennsylvania in the Continental 
Congress which assembled on the tenth day of May. 
In the same year he was appointed Postmaster General 
of the Colonies, head of the Commission for Indian 
Affairs and a member of the Committee of Secrecy for 
carrying on the war. He went to Cambridge and had 
a conference with Washington, and a system for the main- 
tenance of the army was agreed upon. He was a 
Member of Congress and of the Pennsylvania Assembly 
at the same time. He was one of the first to favor a 
declaration of independence and signed it. He was 
also, in 1776, a member of the Convention which was 
assembled for the purpose of establishing a Constitution 
for Pennsylvania. 



119 

In the same year Benjamin Franklin, Silas Deane, and 
Arthur Lee were appointed by Congress to represent the 
cause of the Colonies in France. In February, 1778, a 
treaty of Alliance was effected with France, very largely if 
not mainly by the efforts, ability and tact of Franklin, and 
lie thereupon attended the court at Versailles on the same 
terms as the ambassadors of the European Powers. In 

1782 and 1783 he took part in the negotiation of a treaty 
of Peace between the United States and Great Britain, a 
treaty so successful as to demonstrate that the American 
Envoys were entitled to rank among the most skillful 
diplomatists of their time. The final or definite treaty 
was signed at Paris, September 3, 1783. Franklin in 

1783 also took part in negotiating a treaty with Prussia, 
and being very infirm in health, resigned his office and 
returned to Philadelphia September 17, 1785, at the age 
of seventy-nine, by far the most famous in Europe of 
any American, as a statesman, a scholar, and a 
philosopher. In October he was elected President of 
Pennsylvania, and retained this position by annual 
election for three years. When eighty-two years of age 
he was chosen a delegate to the Convention which 
framed the present Constitution of the United States, 
and which met in Philadelphia in May, 1787. He was 
one of its signers, and it is not too much to say that by 
his profound intelligence, his almost unparalleled tact, 
and above all his unruffled serenity and ability as a 
peace-maker, he contributed as much as any other 
member, excepting perhaps Washington, to the adoption 



I20 

of the Constitution by the Convention and by the 
People. 

This was his last conspicuous public act. He was 
much broken in health ; but devoted his life to his 
friends, to his duties as a citizen of Philadelphia, and 
to philosophical study and research, until the seven- 
teenth day of April, 1790, on which day, at the age 
of eighty-four years and three months, he calmly met 
the last event of this mortal life. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




